Abstract
Phyllis Fagell advises teachers and a principal who are dealing with their students’ and their own anxiety. A middle school math teacher is finding that more boys than girls in her class are risk-averse when it comes to math. A high school teacher has noticed that a lot of her students are getting sick and missing class when there’s a test. And a principal who’s made some hard calls and gotten blowback wonders if he’s in the right job.
Like many middle school math teachers, I’m quite aware that girls can suffer from perfectionism and experience “math anxiety.” I’m always encouraging female students to take risks in the classroom. I also remind my students that every single one of them is a mathematician.
But lately I’ve been dealing with more risk-averse boys than girls. Whether they act defiant, arrive late and then spend half the class wandering the hall, or put their head down on their desk and pretend they’re asleep, it seems that more boys are struggling with anxiety about the material and doing anything to avoid coming to class, participating, and/or taking tests. I’ve got some tools for working with risk-averse female students, but my “best practices” don’t seem to work with their less communicative, more combative male counterparts.
Can you help me understand what’s going on here so I can be more patient and better equipped to help these boys? I want and need them to master the content, and they are falling behind.
Your “best practices” likely will work with these boys eventually, but you may be missing a step. First, it’s important to understand their developmental phase. While I don’t want to overgeneralize, research has found that middle school boys and girls have different motivations. For instance, while girls are more sensitive to peer evaluation, more focused on closeness and social approval, and more worried about losing a relationship if they express anger, boys tend to be more preoccupied with dominance, competition, and winning; feel pressure to be strong and stoic; and have a harder time expressing feelings and being authentic with one another. As a result, girls may find it easier to admit vulnerability, seek help, and accept that help when offered. Regardless of gender, your students are acutely aware of the “imaginary audience,” or the idea that others are scrutinizing and judging them.
Start by building a trusting, nonjudgmental relationship with these boys so you can get to the root of the problem. As it stands, you have no way of knowing what’s getting in their way. They could be risk-averse, or they could be dealing with something else, such as a learning or attentional challenge. Once you’ve established a personal connection, proactively offer to help, then meet with them at a low-pressure time when they won’t be surrounded by peers. Tell them what you’re hearing from other students, too. That not only will normalize their struggle, but also give them the language they may lack to express their fears and frustrations. Try not to personalize their behavior when they’re less than charming, and remember they want to please you and do well.
You didn’t mention the specific strategies you like to use with risk-averse or anxious students, so I’ll offer some of my favorites in case they’re helpful. First, cognitive scientist Sian Beilock (2011), who studies how performance anxiety can be exacerbated or alleviated, has found that it’s helpful to practice under performance conditions. So, if you have a student with test anxiety, they can try timing their practice tests or taking a practice quiz in the classroom. You also can try a mindfulness strategy called object awareness. That involves taking a small, subtle object (such as a paperclip) into the classroom and coming up with three words to describe it before beginning a test. It works because it forces kids to retrieve language, which turns on the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for problem-solving and rational thinking). And by turning on the prefrontal cortex, they turn off the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for the fight, flight, or freeze reaction).
If your students’ anxiety and avoidance relate to making a mistake and potentially embarrassing themselves in front of their classmates, you could offer to feed them questions in advance for a few weeks. That would give them a chance to prepare and set them up for success, which in turn could boost their confidence and willingness to participate. You also can make your students aware of “the spotlight effect,” or the psychological phenomenon whereby people overestimate how much others are noticing or thinking about them. In other words, while they’re worrying about their own performance, their peers are worrying about how others perceive them.
Teacher wants to help students who have test anxiety
I teach in a high-achievement, high-pressure district, and a number of kids skip my class whenever I have a test scheduled. Sure, some of them avoid it because they didn’t study and feel unprepared. But most of the students who suddenly feel sick and skip out on tests, whether they head home or camp out in the nurse’s office, are prepared. They aren’t necessarily going to ace the exam, but they are generally hardworking students who come to class prepared and elevate class discussions. Any time they’re not being formally evaluated, they’re all in. They show up, participate, and are just a joy to teach. I suspect they would do well on my tests even if they didn’t study. On the rare occasion I give “pop” quizzes, for instance, they tend to do quite well, though it’s clear that their anxiety is through the roof. I want to help them manage their stress levels so they don’t miss school every time there’s a test. What can I do for them?
Your students may not realize they have test anxiety. Some kids experience somatic symptoms when they’re nervous, such as headaches or stomachaches, yet don’t connect the dots. You can start by sharing your observations. Once you have their buy-in, you can problem solve with them. Ask them if they’d be open to learning strategies that have worked for other students. If they’re uncomfortable enough to flee every time there’s a test, chances are they’ll welcome your support.
Start by posing questions that help them define and understand their fears. You might say, “what’s the worst-case scenario?” If they say, “I’ll fail the test,” have them play it out. If they fail the test, then what? You can ask, “What could you do if you failed? What resources would you need to recover from the disappointment?” You also could ask them to provide two examples of times they did fail. They may realize they’ve never actually failed, or that they failed, and the fallout wasn’t nearly as dire as they had feared. Maybe they were able to retake the test and did better the second time around. Or maybe they over-inflated the test’s importance when it constituted only a tiny percentage of their grade. Ask them to share the best-case scenario and then ask them to imagine the most likely scenario. They might conclude that the most likely scenario, for instance, is that they’d feel uncomfortable while taking the test and earn an acceptable but imperfect grade. The goal is to help them challenge their own catastrophizing and adopt a more realistic outlook.
Talk to them about practical ways to lessen their fears, too. For example, they might benefit from taking timed practice tests in the classroom to simulate performance conditions. Or they might feel better if they met with you in advance to clarify the material. Encourage them to come up with an affirmation, such as, “I studied hard and am prepared for this test.” If they find themselves focusing on their fears, they can try adding sentence stems such as, “some other possibilities are” or “it’s also possible that.”
Whether they get the instinct to hide in the nurse’s office or flee the building or get flooded with anxiety right when they need to begin taking a test, suggest they incorporate relaxation or distraction strategies. That could mean naming all the sounds in the room; zooming in on an object in the room and coming up with three words to describe it; naming five items in a category — such as five favorite foods or five places they’d like to visit; or giving themselves a tight self-hug to calm their nerves. Or they can try taking a page from cognitive scientist Sian Beilock’s (2011) research on choking under pressure and try something as silly as focusing on their pinkie toe or silently singing happy birthday to themselves.
After they take a test, your students might perseverate about how they did and look to you for reassurance. Rather than say, “I’m sure you did fine” or “I’m proud of you,” say, “How are you feeling right now?” or “You must be proud of yourself for working through your fears.” They can tell themselves, “well, it’s a history test now” (even if it was a math test), or focus on the controllables, such as seeking extra help if they’re unhappy with the outcome. The goal is to teach them to talk back to their anxiety, not do the work for them.