I didn't plan for this post to fall on the day after Christmas, but given how anxiety-producing holidays can be, it actually might be kind of appropriate. Some of you make New Year's Resolutions, and while I am on record as thinking that's kind of dumb, perhaps this will help you in keeping those.
In my last post, I talked about how neuroscientists don't think of anxiety as a negative thing, simply an inevitable one (except for two scenarios - when it is chronic or traumatic - those come with accompanying difficulties that are certainly problematic). Normal anxiety, however, can be used for good. Not only is it a gift from God to help you survive (too little = no response to the danger of a knife-wielding attacker), your response to daily anxieties can be a catalyst for you to do something beneficial. They do, after all, identify what is important to you. Once you have identified that, you can turn your fears into plans.
People with high anxiety spend a lot of time asking "What if?" What if someone breaks into my house? What if I get attacked while walking to the store? What if I have a heart attack at a young age like someone I know did? Adolescent girls spend much of their time on social what-ifs. What if I tell my friends that I like a certain kind of music and they think I'm weird? What if I don't drink with them and it makes them not like me anymore? What if I fail a test? There are potentially an infinite number of what-ifs, and the anxious person's brain will endeavor will find them all. The first step in using anxiety for good is to recognize that each of these what-ifs reveals something we are afraid of losing (the security of my house, my physical health, a relationship).
The second step is to turn those what-ifs into plans. If I am concerned about someone breaking into my house, that can spur me to invest in better locks or a security system. If I am concerned about a physical attack, it can prompt me to sign up for a self-defense class (and then perhaps teach one for other women). If I am concerned that I'll lose friendships because of certain behaviors, it might open me up to making friends with people that make me feel more secure. If I am fearful about failing a test, I might be motivated to put better study habits in place. When what-ifs become plans, we have a better sense of control and can take positive action in our lives and those of others.
For students, school is a series of building stressors, and for some, those stresses lead to academic anxiety. Part of the responsibility for that lies with adults who put too much pressure on grades and college admissions, leading students to take on AP and honors classes for which they may not be suited. It may lead them to take on more extracurricular activities than they have time for. Then, they experience sleep deficits that create a vicious cycle. As a Christian teacher, I want my students to understand that God is preparing them for His plan and to match their academic (and non-academic) pursuits to that plan.
No analogy is perfect, and they all break down somewhere, but the one comparing mental training to muscle training is pretty close. Other than the reality that the brain is not, in fact, a muscle, you can beat this analogy to death. It is also helpful that most students have an understanding of physical training either from sports they play or their PE classes.
Dr. Lisa Damour, the author of Untangled and Under Pressure, says that students often feel better just knowing that there is a design to the stress level of school. She talks to them about how you start muscle training with small weights and then build intensity by increasing the amount of weight and number of reps, and she tells them that school is like that. In kindergarten, we give you the mental equivalent of one-pound weights. When those get too easy, we give you the three-pound weights in first grade. By the time you get to high school, you are doing some high-intensity "lifting" and a lot of reps. Knowing that it is meant to get progressively more difficult can reduce anxiety because they know we aren't going to throw a hundred-pound weight at them when they are just getting good at reps with thirty pounds.
I don't get the question "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" very often, but I got it a lot early in my career. This was when I found the benefits of the weight training analogy. I would ask them if, while lifting weights, they ever asked "When am I ever going to need this weight to be six feet in the air in real life?" They knew that was a silly question because the purpose of weight training isn't to put the weight at a certain height. You lift the weight to that height because the process puts appropriate strain on the muscle to strengthen them. Academic content is the equivalent of using the correct form to lift a weight. It puts the appropriate amount of strain on the brain to strengthen it. Unless you are dealing with a very grade-focused system, this knowledge can help a student recognize that a good amount of stress is useful for future learning.
We seem to be in a perpetual state of questioning traditional pedagogy and assessment. There is value to these discussions, but I fear that, more often than not, we are simply implementing change for the sake of change. We assume a newer method is a better method without asking what the purpose of time-tested techniques was, to begin with. Semester exams are one of those things. Because people don't like the stress of exams, they assume we shouldn't have them. These same people will tell you how valuable a marathon is. They'll tell the value of pushing the body to its limits; they'll tell you how training for a marathon is valuable because you are working toward a goal and training harder than you would have if there weren't an upcoming marathon. They get that strain on the body is good, but they don't want to apply that to the mind. Exams are like marathons, and studying for them is like training for a marathon. You prepare better because of the coming challenge and push yourself. In the end, you recognize that the strain is good for you and didn't kill you and learn that you are stronger than you previously thought. When students experience test anxiety, I remind them that they have felt this before and they got through it. I remind them that no one has ever died from an exam. Relying on past and vicarious victories can reduce their anxiety to a good level, the level where they are spurred forward and finding new strength.
When you join a gym, you have a number of options. You can work out on your own, designing your workouts around things you like or things you believe you need (treadmills, stair climbers, weights). You can take group classes (step aerobics, spin classes, yoga). You can pay extra for personal training. There are academic analogs to this as well. Prior to the pandemic, there had been a lot of discussion about whether internet access would eventually supplant teachers. Using YouTube, Khan Academy, Crash Course, Wikipedia, etc. to learn is fantastic but it is a lot like walking into a gym and designing your own workout. You do the things you like, but you may not know what you need or what would be the best way to progress in order to maximize your training. What you do is beneficial, but you might get more out of it if someone with expertise and/or experience guides the process. I have taken a couple of step aerobics classes, and when I do, it has some benefits. Social pressure keeps me from stopping mid-workout, which I sometimes do when I am working out at home. The teacher designs a progressive routine that keeps me from overdoing it in the beginning but also pushes me into an intensity level I would not have pursued on my own. When I am flagging, I get encouragement from the instructor or the music on the woman on my left. Normal school classes are the academic analog, designed by a professional to build at the appropriate pace and take students to an intensity level they wouldn't pursue on their own with the online tools they like. The expert designs methods and pacing, and there is motivation and encouragement from the group. If, in the gym, you want to push a little harder or find that you have difficulty with things in a group class, you can pay extra to hire a personal trainer. They diagnose your weaknesses and give you customized training to help you overcome them. The academic equivalent is hiring a tutor. The group classes may give you most of what you need, but if you want to progress farther or compensate for a weakness the class helped you discover, you might need a little more individual attention. A tutor can give you that, but it isn't something you need every day. When students realize this is all intentional, they may not love the stress they feel, but at least they know there are options in the plan.
The previous paragraph describes a pretty ideal situation, but we all know that humans are messy, and the education system is made of humans. For that reason, it is important to help kids recognize when something is wrong and give them tools for how to handle that. While I've never hired a personal trainer, my understanding is that one of the things they do is teach you how to differentiate good pain from bad pain. It is not their job to make you feel comfortable; in fact, if they don't make you uncomfortable, they are wasting your money. It's their job to get you to lift one more pound and do one more rep than you want. The adage of "no pain, no gain" is true. However, there is pain, and there is PAIN. The type of pain that leaves you sore at the end of a workout is good. The kind of pain that indicates injury is bad and will ultimately slow your progress. The academic equivalent of this is to recognize the good kind of mental tiredness that comes from a good, long study session and differentiate it from overwhelming burnout. We should teach a student how to stop before that breaking point, how to change techniques or subjects at the right moment, how to advocate for themselves with their teachers, and when it is appropriate to take a rest day. In pedagogical terms, we want them to experience desirable difficulty because if we don't strain, we don't retain. There's a right level, and learning to operate within that level can reduce fear and use the stress to accomplish more than we know
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