Focus Issues

Nisha was a good girl, smart, kind and pretty. A perfect girl, her parent’s golden child. There was one problem though, she could not focus. It took her 3 hours to do her homework, it took her days to clean her room, and eating dinner was out of the question. She always got distracted with the things and toys around her, the T.V. from downstairs or her neighbor mowing their lawn. This was not good because in a few weeks she would have MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System). It is a big test that children take on a computer or on paper.
This year they were doing it on the computer which means you have to write 2,500 characters for the writing MCAS. Nisha tried doing it before, multiple times — at school when the teacher does practice tests, with the class and at home with her father. It took her forever, which was not a good sign.
MCAS is split into two parts, Math and Writing. Math and Writing are split into two parts Math 1 and Math 2 and Writing 1 and Writing 2. Math came first. Nisha came to school thinking that she could nail this. But, after a little while, her mind started to go places. Summer vacation, Christmas, what she was gonna do after school. She came home that night. Worried that she had failed. She slept on that thought and came up with some pretty good ideas on how she could nail it. The next day Nisha came to school, she had worn blinders, the things that horses wear to keep them from getting distracted at races. She thought this thing would help. Her dad got it for her from Amazon as a joke, but, Nisha took it very seriously. She sat down at her desk, she looked at the screen and immediately got distracted by the crumbs on her keyboard. It took her 5 1/2 hours to finish a 17 question test. She knew she would fail. Now she was worried. What if she fails all the tests? Would she get held back? How much trouble would she get in? Would everyone find out?
The next day, Writing 1, she wore a shirt with no sequins, no cool light up shoes or funny socks, she cleaned out her keyboard and got to work. She did not look anywhere but her screen and still lost focus. There were a few groups of kids from another class in the hallway. By the sounds of it, they were in third grade and they were working on their biographies. She loved to eavesdrop, so, that’s exactly what she did. They were very interesting she soon found out, talking about famous people like Rosa Parks and Mahathma Gandi. By the time she found out she needed to get back to her test, it was time to go home. She went home and told her parents about the whole dilemma. Her parents told her that it was all in her head. It’s not the crumbs on her keyboard or the funny socks. It’s her thoughts. They told her to empty her brain before the test the next day. Now it was the last MCAS day, writing 2. She went to school with an empty mind. Only because her dad told her to bring a notebook in and write down whatever she thought of instead of letting play around with her mind. She focused on her screen, only thinking about the question and she finished! Another 17 question quiz but this one was finished in 3 hours!
She felt so good about herself! She felt like she aced it! When the grades came in later in the year, Writing 1 was bad but Writing 2 was great! Her parents were so proud of her. She learned her lesson. Be fast, focus, try your best and finish it!
