Q: I teach in a high-achievement-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 hard-working 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?
A: Your students may not realize they have test anxiety. Some kids experience somatic symptoms when they’re nervous, such as headaches or stomach aches, 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.
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 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 that work for them.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phyllis L. Fagell
Phyllis L. Fagell is the school counselor at Landon School in Washington, D.C., a therapist at the Chrysalis Group in Bethesda, Md., and the author of the Career Confidential blog. She is also the author of Middle School Matters and Middle School Superpowers, available at https://amzn.to/3Pw0pcu.
