Timed Tests Taught Me I Was Broken | I Was Just Different | Episode 502

A stopwatch in a classroom can teach a lesson nobody intended: your value equals your speed. We get personal about how timed quizzes in elementary school planted stress, anxiety, and a “finish first” mindset that followed us into adulthood, even when the grades never depended on the seconds. If you’ve ever felt your heart race during a test, or judged yourself because someone else turned their paper in sooner, you’ll recognize the pattern fast.

We also talk about what it means to feel “backwards” in a world built for the majority. Justin shares how being left-handed and approaching questions in a non-linear way, sometimes starting at the bottom or jumping to the last question, became both a coping strategy and a source of self-doubt. Along the way, we touch on neurodiversity, late recognition of autistic traits, and why many kids never get the language or support to explain what pressure is doing to their brains.

From the lens of teaching experience, we challenge the idea that speed is a clean measure of intelligence. Timed tests can reward guessing, punish careful reading, and turn learning into public competition. We make the case for more human-centered education, where students can learn at their own pace, show their work, and build real mastery without fear. If this resonates, subscribe, share the show with someone who needs it, and leave a review with your take: should schools stop treating time like the main scoreboard?

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Chapter Markers

• 0:00 Welcome And Share The Show
• 1:02 What "Backwards" Means To Me
• 2:39 Timed Quizzes And Early Stress
• 5:44 Stopwatch Culture And Speed Myths
• 12:01 Competition Anxiety And Self-Worth
• 17:57 Left-Handed Thinking And Working Backward
• 25:29 Rethinking Timed Tests As An Educator
• 35:32 Doing Things In Human Time
• 36:08 Closing Thanks And Community Ask

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Transcript

Welcome And Share The Show

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices 0:01

Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining. Whether you're watching, listening here in the United States or abroad, thank you so much. Check us out on social media. Give us the big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, repost. Uh, all those things are free to do, and we would greatly appreciate that. And last but not least, if you could reach out to 25 or 50 uh contacts in your phone and let them know about voices for voices and our voices for voices, TV strong podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Uh we are well on our way to reaching and helping three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And it's because of you. Uh, you're helping spread the good news, and we greatly appreciate that. Absolutely. Uh so with that being said, uh, this episode is gonna talk about me being a little bit backwards. Um I guess is the the as the term I'm gonna use. I I I I don't know. Um I'm not I I'm not big on names or like groupings of uh of people. It's all about you know the human uh culture and not the politics. Um but as someone who could be looked at as backwards uh with some of the things that I do and I've done uh with mental health, mental illness, all of that, mental challenges, that I think there will probably be at least one at least one person that will um will get what it uh I'm laying down. So being backwards, what what do I consider that uh and again I'm talking about me, I'm not talking about anybody else. Um if you relate, great, if you don't, that's great too. Uh, but this is how I perceive myself. So during school, um I I can't remember which grade it was. If it was the first or just second or the third grade, uh I'm not quite sure. But I remember having like these math quizzes, and I think they were just called like timed quiz, timed quiz. I I can't think of the name that our teacher called them, but they were timed quizzes where there were questions that we had to answer, and they were timed. Now, I look at that now. I'll look we'll talk about the flip side of where we're at now versus how I feel now about what was occurring. So we would have these time quizzes, okay? So there'd be maybe five, ten questions, and I believe they were math. I could be wrong, I think they were math questions, and they were a time, quite literally, where all of the students, including myself, were passed out a quiz on a piece of paper face down, so that we we couldn't look at we couldn't get a head start. So it looked like I mean it was blank paper, right? You know, on the front there was something printed, on the back there wasn't. And so we all, as in all of us students, were getting ready to take these timed quizzes or a timed quiz, because we're just gonna talk about like one, but because the rest of them were the exact same, not the exact same questions, same process is what I was getting at. Hopefully that cleared that up. So once all of us students had our quiz lying face down, then our teacher would have again it's been a ton of years. I believe she literally had, and I use literally way too much, I I realize that. I am sorry for that, that's just me. She had a stopwatch, because we didn't have we didn't have droids or androids or iPhones or anything like that. So if you wanted the time, for example, in sports, the uh National Football League here in the United States has a combine where the athletes that want to play professional football, the real football is soccer. I get it, I know that I'm just speaking in terms of the American terminology for right now. They all gather for I think it's a weekend or maybe it's a week, and they go through all kinds of testing. How high you can jump, how much can how much weight can you lift, and how fast you can run in the old fashioned stopwatch is uh is used. And and so it's duty is of being a stopwatch is that just that start button, stop button, and then you know start over, and there might be an on-off switch, obviously. But that's what it what it was. Same thing for American baseball. If a member of the team batting gets a hit, walk, gets to first base somehow. They can lead off the base, meaning they don't have to stand on first base while the pitcher pitches, uh they're able to get a lead off, so three, four, five, six, seven feet. And the first base coach, because right, we're talking about first base, has a stopwatch. Because they're not I don't believe they're allowed you using you know technology like we have, so they go back to the old fashioned and they have the how fast it is for the pitcher to throw over the first base, so then the first base coach can relay that information to the person on their team that is on first base and on the offense team, so they're batting the other teams in the field trying to get three outs. The team batting is trying to get as many runs. First, second, third, and then touching home plate as possible. I know these are things a lot of a lot of you already know, but I'm just trying to share a couple different ways so where the stopwatch would be used still today. So it could be like a 40-yard dash and the football combine, and it could be how how many seconds or milliseconds it it takes for the pitcher uh to throw over the first base. So if it takes a long time, then the person on the team that is on offense, they might try to steal second base, not literally steal the actual base, but run to second base before the pitcher, and or the catcher would throw the ball to second base, and one of their teammates would be there, and they would try to catch the ball and tag the person from the other team that was running from first base to second base. So rewind many years. That's done. So, right, so all the quizzes are passed out. Teacher would basically say, ready, set, go. Start the stopwatch. Uh, and we flip over the the quiz and we go through the questions, and then we got to walk it up, literally quite walk it up, or if somebody's on wheels and in a wheelchair, you know, they would wheel themselves up, and we would turn in the quiz, and then the teacher would write how long it took us to take those quizzes. I think you can all see where I'm going with this. And so when we talk about stress, when we talk about anxiety, as a child, that's probably and I just thought about this this morning. I woke up and and I was thinking, it's like I'm backwards, and so I'll get to how I think that I'm backwards and why I'm calling myself backwards, not anybody else, nobody else myself. And I'm obviously okay with it because I'm talking about it. So right, we get the quiz, answer the questions, take it up to the teacher, teacher writes down how many seconds or minutes it takes. And these are meant to be rather these weren't meant to take like an hour to to to take, or a half hour, or twenty minutes. That's not how they were designed. They were designed to take not a whole lot of time. So I remember I d and I don't know where it came from. I I do not know. And I didn't a I I didn't ask other students how they felt about it. But quite literally that the the timed quizzes put added stress on students, myself included. Because let's say I had we had 15 students in class. I I don't know, I don't remember. So let's just say we had 10 students. Once these quizzes got introduced and we started taking them on a quote like a regular basis, I think it might have been like every Friday or every Monday or something like that. And it would be a review of what we learned over the previous days. And I'm laughing at myself. I've gotten used to that and gotten to be much better about that, to be able to laugh at myself. Uh but it wasn't really a laughing in the joking manner matter. It was quite literally, here's your quiz, ready to go, fill them out, answer the questions, turn them in. Teacher puts the time that it took 49 seconds, a minute and 15 seconds, two minutes, well whatever the whatever the time was that it took us each to fill out the quiz and then turn it in. And I don't know where it came from. As I mentioned, I'm sure other students felt the same way. But again, we were like super young, so we weren't in that. Like, how does that feel? Like, we didn't those those types of things weren't really addressed when I was growing up. So that when people say to me about, well, if you weren't diagnosed with autism when you were growing up, then you couldn't be diagnosed when you're in your thirties exhibiting autistic properties or areas. So that's as I think today, where some of my anxiety, stress, wanting to be the first in the class to turn my quiz in. And if I wasn't, I was, you know, kind of upset at myself. And I guess I want to say to I'll get to that in a second. Uh so how am I how how do I think I was backwards? It by being competitive? No. Uh in the world, most people are right-handed, even though it looks like it's left-handed the way that most people write with their right hand. Uh they kick a kickball or a football with their right foot, usually the the stronger of the two feet. Uh anyway, so I'm left-handed. So that's this hand, even though it's mirrored the way it looks, so it looks like it's my right hand, but it's actually my left hand. So I'm left-handed. So right there, you know, my I asked my mom and dad how they knew I was left-handed, like at the very beginning, like growing up. And they said that, you know, when we were eating, they put this utensils on the right hand, the right side of the plate, the dish, the bowl, and I would move it to the left side, and then it just went from there. Now, in baseball, I I can't remember if I started batting left-handed only, or if I batted left and right. Because generally, again, and and if we look at like a total population, most people would would if they're playing American baseball, they would they would bat left-handed or right-handed, one or the other. Very few bat both ways, like right and left. And I kick myself. Because I am left predominantly left-handed, that I probably should have stayed batting left-handed. Or at the very least, switch you know, right or left, depending on like if the pitcher's pitching left-handed, I would bat right. And if they're the pitcher was pitching with their right hand, uh, I would would bat left. Uh so I'm a little bit backwards, so I'm a little bit. And again, this is not, I'm not grouping anybody except myself right now. Nobody except myself. So during these time quizzes, that's what I would do. I mean, I was left-handed, so that's what I wrote with, and I write with still to this day. My left hand. And so that's how I would take the quizzes with my left hand. Other students, majority of students with their right hand. But not only not only that their ten questions, right? Most people start at one and then two, and then three, and then four, and five. Somehow, somehow, I got it in my head. And as the years went on, some of it played out like this. And so, somewhere in my mind, I don't know why, I don't know how. Start the bottom for a couple questions and then go to the top. And and so I'm calling myself backwards. Nobody else, I'm calling myself because I was going backwards on these quizzes, which were timed, so there's a whole lot going on there. Right. So it's not just did I answer the questions right? Did the other students answer the questions right? It was that, and then it was timed as well. And then it was announced, you know, at the end of the quizzes. Who was first? So right there's competition. And so that's kind of how I'm backwards. And I still do things like that to this day. I remember high school, college, I'll look at the last question. Because a lot of times, not all the time, not every time, but sometimes one of the toughest questions will be at the end. Right? So it would start with like maybe like an easier, like a multiple choice, like A, B, C, or D. And then it might go to true false, the question type. And then it might go to an essay question. An essay question may be the last question on said quiz or said test. And so for whatever reason, that's why that's what I've done a lot over the course of my life. And so I look at myself as me being backwards. Not in a bad way. And then I remember at least a teacher or two throughout all my education, would you know, would have directions. Like, please answer the question fully. Make sure to show all your work. I'm sure we're you know turning the clock back if you're around my age or or so. Um and then there might be some additional sentence in there saying, write the number four at the top right of your quiz or your test. Because for people like me, I was going from the bottom to the top, and sometimes I wouldn't read the directions because I had I still had a little bit of that timed feeling in me. And then I felt like, and feel like still to this day, if there are things like that, sometimes I do the same exact thing that I did 40 years ago. Oh my gosh, I'm so old. It's all good. So now let's look at kind of the current state of what I experienced in others. These time tests, these time quizzes, putting little hidden ways to get extra points in the directions for those of us that don't always and haven't always read the directions. And I think that might be some of where my creative spirit comes from, where I do things outside the box a lot, I guess is the best way I can think of saying it. So, right, a majority of people are gonna read the directions and start on question one and then two. Me, not so much. Do we get to the same ending where we have answered all the questions? Yeah, unless it's timed. But when I say timed for college, because I've taught over ten years, undergrad, masters, in-class, remote, created courses, I've done it all. And so sometimes there's a time limit of like two hours or you know, something like that, or an hour and a half, and whatever that may be, but nothing to the extent that I experienced being a young boy with these time quizzes because it ended up bringing again this competitive spirit, and while that's all well and good, yeah, we like to do things fast. We got AI, we have all kinds of tools, the you know, power tools to help us do things faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. But when it comes to you know these quizzes, you know, where everybody better be done, you know, or you know, the quiz is gonna close in two minutes. Well, some people might not be able to do that. And so that's when I talk about you know, being a human being and and being on the side of humans and human culture, that sometimes for a lot of reasons, we could we we we could maybe just not finish that exam, that quiz in time. And so do we want to be teaching our children that even even if the teacher didn't say, oh, the first person, the first student finished in whatever, so many seconds or minutes, whatever. Then everybody hears it and goes, Oh, um I didn't do I didn't make it first. I didn't hear my name until almost the end. So it took me longer time. That must mean I'm not as smart. And that's that's not the message we should be sending anybody, especially children. It's one thing to be competitive as you get older in sports in in other other ways. But we don't need to be and I and I hope that there's not many, if any, at all, that has their first graders competing against other first graders and then sharing that with the whole class, like going up to the we had blackboards or green boards, and then chalk, and this, and then a teacher would you know put names. From what I remember, that's what what occurred would put the names in order of who got finished first. I'd rather have a student take their time to finish whatever they're doing than for right, because I mean if we're all about competition, it's like well I I I need to be the first one done. I gotta be the I gotta get all the most points, I gotta do this and that. It shouldn't be like it was for me. And as I look back, I again I can't help but think competition is good, but when we're talking about learning, we all learn at our own pace. Just the way it is. Some things come easier, some things are harder. All things could be hard. Or there could be a lot of easy easy parts. So that's how I'm back, where's how I feel? I'm left-handed and not right-handed. I do questions from the bottom to the top. I worried too much about, you know, back in you know, 40 years ago, worried too much about trying to be always the first one done. And there were times where I was, and yeah, it made me feel good, but it only see the times didn't get entered into the grade book, the grades got entered into the grade book. I mean, yeah, you could probably put some you could you could utilize the time into the grade if you really wanted to, as an instructor, as a teacher, as a professor. You could. I don't recommend that. Because we need students, we need people, we need humans. That yeah, it would be great to have everything done so fast. But we're not humans aren't machines. So they say, oh a machine can do ten times the work that one person, one human can do. Well, it's because we're not machines, we're human beings, and so we're in first grade or whatever, and we're going on like we're celebrating who got done first. Doesn't mean that I got all the questions, right? Doesn't mean that at all. It just means, oh wow, I could have just randomly gone through, put my name on it, and turned it in. Be like Justin, Justin got it his uh his quiz in first, but he got zero points, he got zero questions correct. See what I'm getting at? We all do things in our own time. And me as a believer, it would do things in God's time, not my time, not your time, not it's and you don't have to be a believer to watch or listen to our show at all. I'm just giving my my side of the story and my experiences. And when we have guests on, they give theirs. Who knows? Maybe you'll be a guest. So thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. If you could give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, repost, follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook, or the the key profiles uh or key plat key platforms that you can find us on. And if you could reach out to 25 or 50 contacts and share voices for voices with them. So until next time, I'm Justin Alan Hayes. Hope you have a great rest of your day, and we will talk to you and um see you very soon. Bye bye.