It is easy to write about the people who
are neglectful parents. You know who they are. In my former company I
had two psychiatric and psychosocial clinics that served children, and I
used to walk into those clinics and think to myself, “What spawned
these hellions?†Then I met their mom and dad and I understood. It is
true that kids from bad homes and kids from broken homes have a much
harder road than kids from homes with two loving parents… But do two loving parents guarantee good parenting?
When I talk to teachers, the subject of parents is inevitable.
The parent will play the role of ally or
foe. Even if the parent is uninvolved, that makes that parent a foe in
abstentia. The parents who neglect their kids or mistreat them are
fairly easy to spot, and the teacher knows that their child is one who
will need special attention… and one that will have obstacles to
overcome. But what about the kid whose mom volunteers to help with all of the parties and whose dad shows up for field trips?
They never miss a school play and it is obvious they care for their
child, because she has the best of clothes and is well fed and is
obviously very important to mom and dad. But the kid is still a brat!
Having an unstable home is a red flag,
and it is one that is often raised high and noticed. But having a stable
home and loving parents does not mean that good parenting is occurring.
You can have a mom and dad who love their child and want what is best
for their child and are trying their hardest, but they just don’t know
what to do. There is no such thing as guaranteed parenting instincts, just like there is no such thing as guaranteed common sense.
So what does an educator do when they have a parent who obviously loves
their child and is obviously trying, but just doesn’t know what they
are doing?
∞ ∞ ∞
Chase is a 3rd grade teacher and loves working with the difficult kids.
In fact, he volunteered to be placed in
an inner-city school for several years, because reaching kids whose home
life is difficult was rewarding and it paid off in tangible and
noticeable results. It was hard when the school he actually attended had
an opening and reached out to him, because he had to make the decision
to leave the opportunity to teach kids who live in poverty and instead
teach at a school that served an affluent neighborhood. But he couldn’t
pass up the chance to teach in his home school, so he took the job.
Soon Chase
began to see that the kids that come from families with nice cars act
an awful lot like the kids whose families don’t own a car. The
language might be a little different, and rarely does a kid now come to
Chase’s classroom hungry, but kids are kids. They still run and play and
laugh and get into trouble. The kids in Chase’s new school did seem to
have a more optimistic view of the future than the kids at his prior
school, and the room and supplies were obviously much nicer… but overall, kids are kids.
This past spring Chase called for a
parent-teacher conference with a mom of a little boy named Josh. Josh
wouldn’t sit when class started and seldom calmed down the first time he
was told to do so. In fact, if he calmed down by the third time then
Chase considered it a success. Chase
was a little surprised by how uncooperative Josh was, because from day
one Josh’s mom was in the classroom before school, volunteered to help
at all events, and packed Josh lunches that even Chase envied.
When it came time for the parent-teacher
conference to start, Josh’s mom told her two younger kids, twin 4 year
old boys, to sit at a separate table and wait for her to finish. Chase
barely got through introductions when the twins were up from the table,
rummaging through cabinets, and even sitting at his chair behind his
desk opening the drawers. Their mom told them to come back to the table
and sit down. They did… for about 2 minutes, and then they were up again
wrestling and running around the room looking in desks. Josh’s mom would yell at them to stop from time to time, but the boys never even slowed down.
Finally, Chase had enough. He called both boys to the table, put some
construction paper and crayons in front of them, and told them not to
get up until they had both drawn and colored a picture of their home and
family. Chase was kind but very firm. The boys sat down and began to
draw.
Chase sat down and started to speak, but was interrupted by Josh’s mom when she said,
“How did you do that? How did you make them listen to you?â€
∞ ∞ ∞
Josh’s mom is not an unusual parent. She
loves her kids and wants what is best for them, and she is willing to
sacrifice her time for them. But that doesn’t mean she knows what she is
doing. Chase picked up immediately on the fact that the boys did not
respect her authority, therefore they did not listen to her when she
told them what to do. They knew they could get away with pretty much anything and they did. Their
mom chased behind them pleading with them to stop, but consequences
seldom came their way and seldom was any rule or proactive discipline
applied.
Think about the kids who come from
broken homes, where a parent is missing and the other parent is unable
to provide adequate attention because of life circumstances: That child is not learning the process of self-discipline, because there is no one there to teach it.
Now think about Josh and his brothers: They are not learning self-discipline because there is no one at home capable of teaching it.
We have lots of kids from affluent
neighborhoods with two parents at home who are just as neglected
developmentally as the kids who walk home from school to an empty home
and fix themselves dinner using the microwave. Yes, the kids whose
parents are at home have the incredible advantage of self-security,
because they come from a home with loving and present parents, but
that does not always mean they are getting the discipline they need to
integrate into, and have success within, social and academic settings.
In fact, they sometimes have the added barrier of expectations come
from having a “good†home and, therefore, they should know better than
the way they are acting.
So what does an educator do?
This is a fine line to walk because,
sadly, we live in litigious society that seems to be looking for a
reason to have its feelings hurt. But if you are a true educator, that
means you are taking on the responsibility of educating that child. Sometimes that means you have to educate the parent.
The fine line you must walk is being honest enough with the parents to
help them understand that discipline is necessary, what discipline
means, and how it should be applied without sounding like you are
calling them a bad parent. The line is getting even finer, isn’t it?
Leaps,
the sponsor of this blog, is a tremendous social and emotional
development tool. It’s used by educators around the country to help kids
learn how to develop and integrate into social, academic, and familial
settings. Leaps was being used in a very large urban school complex. I
call it a complex because it was a combined middle and high school in
the center of one of the nation’s largest cities. There were thousands
of kids on this campus, and most of them came from the projects and low
income apartments that surrounded the school complex. Exacerbated by daily behaviors, the district decided to begin using Leaps as the health curriculum for all middle schoolers.
The thoughts were that teaching these kids how to behave and how to
have and understand social expectations were the most important
health-related topics they could teach.
The teachers began teaching skills such as “How Your Appearance Communicates Your Attitude†and “Learning to Respect a Person of Authority†and “How to Recognize and Control Your Emotionsâ€.
Each time a lesson was taught, the teacher would send home the Leaps’
“Parent Recap Pageâ€. The page recapped the lesson by stating the goal,
the 4 key points of the lesson, and the benefits of using the skill…
and also the consequence of not using it. The
thought was that if this recap went home to mom and dad, then they
could apply and enforce the same social expectation at home that was
being applied ant taught at school.
But something surprising happened…
Parent after parent began contacting the school and showing up at the principal’s office with these recaps. They weren’t angry that these skills were being taught, but instead wanted to know more about them.
They wanted to know how they were being taught and how they could teach
them at home. The principal decided to get creative and offered to have
some of his teachers reteach the same skills lessons after school for
the parents. It was offered as a way of instructing the parents in the
way the school was instructing the kids. But the principal had an
ulterior motive as well: He was hoping some of these parents would show
up for the classes, and maybe they would learn some of these skills as
well.
There were nearly 20 parents for the first class, nearly 30 for the second, and by
the time the semester ended, the twice a week classes were held in the
cafeteria because of the overflow of moms and dads who wanted to learn
more about the behavioral skills they needed to teach their kids.
It is a fine line to walk when you are confronting parents whose parenting skills leave a little to be desired…
But a true educator understands that educating a child means teaching the whole child.
That means that what happens at home matters as well. Teaching
social and emotional maturity skills gives you the opportunity to ask
simple questions about how and if those skills are being taught at home.
This is not an accusatory question, but is instead a question that can
be phrased in a way that lets you understand the level of actual
parenting and instructing that is occurring at home. Then, you can approach the parent and ask for a partnership with them in educating their child.
Talk to them about how your responsibility is to teach their child how
to read and write and add and subtract, but your responsibility is also
to teach them how to get along and make friends and learn to live. Those
latter goals are the same ones that the parent should have for their
kids, so it gives you a common ground to talk about how you are going to
do it and how they can help.
Some of the best parents you will ever
meet come from poor homes where resources are scarce but love and
attention abound. Some of our worst parents come from rich homes where
there is plenty of stuff but no affection or nurturing. Some of our saddest homes are those whose parent want to do what is right, but just don’t know what they are doing.
Sometimes a teacher’s job extends to teaching the parents about the
need for discipline and social and emotional development. Because when
it happens at home, your class is the one that will benefit.
Click here to receive a free copy of one of the Leaps’ lesson plans mentioned above, and to access our free FamilyTalk resources.
I have the very distinct blessing of living in one of the most beautiful cities in this incredible country. Spring in Austin, Texas is a magical time. The fields of bluebonnets and Indian-Paintbrush turn roadsides purple and yellow, blue and red. A simple Sunday afternoon can absolutely lift the heart. Couple those incredible colors with the majesty of a fast forming thunderhead that reaches endlessly into the sky and you soon truly believe that a creator had to have his finger in making something so beautiful. Spring is here and every minute spent indoors just feels like a minute that has been wasted. It feels borderline immoral to be inside on a 78 degree day!
So what do teachers do…
…with a room full of kids who have already spent 7 months in a classroom, just finished with 2 months taking mock tests and doing pretest prep and then test prep, while working towards the all important and all consuming standardized test? Testing is done. It’s over. The pinnacle of academic measurement is in the rear view mirror, and what lies ahead in a few short weeks is the freedom of summer! But before we can even get to summer, we have spring. Spring is the time of rebirth and renewal, the time of running and playing and sunning and doing anything but sitting in a room filled with fluorescent lighting! For the students, spring fever is in full swing– but what in the world is the teacher supposed to do to control her own spring fever, keep her mind on teaching while spending these glorious days in the ever tightening four walls of the classroom? Some days are afflicted with hay fever or cedar fever, but this time of year nearly every day is falling prey to spring fever.
Before we can begin talking about surviving spring fever with our sanity and job security still intact, we have to go a little further back.
Why did you become an educator?
Why did you spend thousands of dollars and years of your life to gain a certification that assures you of never being wealthy or famous… and constantly dealing with people who want to be anywhere but where they are supposed to be?
It wasn’t for the hours… (newsflash for non-educators: teachers work longer hours than most of the rest of us combined!). It wasn’t for the perks… that whole “summers off” thing is pretty much a myth when you factor in all the things teachers have to do over the ever-shortening summer to survive and/or get ready for next year. It wasn’t for the glamour… if you ever want to feel old, just hang out with a bunch of kids!
You became an educator because you know there is much more to life than money and fame, and that teaching a young person to live and prosper far outweighs the trappings of the dollar. You became a teacher because there is true nobility and purpose in preparing kids to someday be life contributors. You became a teacher because it is one of the true professions that really matters! And believe it or not, spring is the perfect time to reclaim that nobility and redefine that purpose, because you have at least a month that has nothing to do with test prep and test taking and test….test…testing. With testing out of the way, real learning can now occur! For clarification: this is not an indictment on testing, but rather an acknowledgement that much of the past couple of months of your life has been consumed with getting your students ready for testing.
Go back for a few minutes to those days of college when you were preparing yourself for life as a teacher…
Did you ever envision it would be mundane? Of course not.
Did you ever envision it would feel restrictive? No way!
You most likely looked towards teaching as the opportunity to shape young lives, teach lessons and skills, and touch both minds and hearts. And that is what you can do now. You have spent the last several months plowing testable information into the minds of your students, but now you have the opportunity to pour some real knowledge into their hearts and into their lives. Reading, writing, and arithmetic may be the backbone of an education, but learning to live, making friends, developing socially, and learning to feel good about yourself is education’s heart.
Motivation is defined in two ways. There is extrinsic motivation, which means that there are motivators that occur outside of you and apply motivating forces on you. Then there are intrinsic motivators. These are the motivators that are internal and inherent to a person. These are the driving factors within you. And here’s a well-kept secret that can change the way you look at spring in a classroom: up until now your students’ motivators have been external. If they don’t pass the test, they won’t be able to move to the next grade. If they don’t participate appropriately in pre-test prep, they won’t get to go to the school party. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with external motivators, but your kids are likely tired of them.
So, now is the time you can pounce on those internal or intrinsic motivators. Now is the time you can teach to the things that matter, not just to the district or the state, but instead, to the student. I am sure your students absolutely care if they can read and write with proficiency, and many of them absolutely care whether or not they have mastered mathematics. But I can pretty much guarantee you that they all care what the other kids think about them, how they fit in, how they feel about themselves, and how they can control themselves. You see, those intrinsic motivators work because they are born out of personal desire… and when you feed and foster intrinsic motivators, your kids will jump all over the learning.
So how do you change the last month or so of the year and make it intrinsically motivating?
You center it on the lessons your students will need for life, not the lessons they need for the test.
What if you spent the next month with your writing assignments focused on a lesson you just taught that dealt with building self-confidence? What if your students were challenged to write a self-reflective paper in which they had to identify their personal strong points? What if you supplemented that with an extra paper in which they had to identify the strong points of another student? Can you imagine the kids not paying attention if you were reading those extra paragraphs that were extolling the virtues of the kids in your class? I can promise that there would be no heads on their desks and no eyes closed.
What if you spent a period talking about how important it is to identify and control your emotions, then had the students put together a collage of the emotions they have felt over the school year? Do you think the other kids would pay attention to that presentation? What if you spent a class period talking about how to handle an angry person and how to deal with someone who is being aggressive towards them? Do you think your kids would pay attention if their classmates were presenting storyboards of how they would deal with the bully or with an angry parent? Of course they would.
The difference between those extrinsic motivators is that the learning standards, and therefore standardized testing material, are those elements that society has defined as necessary for the kids to learn. Internal or intrinsic motivators are those life lessons that our kids want to learn.
A few paragraphs earlier, I promised you the secret to making the last month or so of school the best learning time of the year…
Here it is: Teach the whole kid, not just the standardized part.
Teach about life’s lessons and talk about making friends, getting along and taking care of yourself, and understanding the responsibilities that will soon be coming. Talk about how other people view your students and what they can do to change that if they need to. Talk about how your students can feel better about themselves and help them understand their worth. The secret is that our standardized society has defined a student’s worth within that student’s as that student’s ability to recite and recall facts in a standardized format. Our students define their self worth by their ability to make and maintain friends, in getting along with their mom and dad, and in having goals that help them realize there is something even better waiting for them if they try their best. Teaching your students how to grow socially and emotionally will be some of the most fun and easiest teaching you will ever do, because these are the lessons they want and the lessons they need. These are the lessons that will provide an immediacy of impact and even an immediacy of gratification beyond that of any pure academic lesson.
And here’s the best part – when you start teaching those lessons that cause your students to be self motivated to learn, then your passion for teaching will be reignited… and your spring will once again be about a time of renewal and rebirth. Only now you can add your enthusiasm for shaping the hearts and minds of kids as part of that spring renewal!
Get started now! Leaps (www.selforschools.com), the sponsor of this blog, is making several social and emotional development lesson plans available for free.
Sylvia and I were married for 9 years
before we had our first child. Megan was the answer to many of our
prayers. She came into this world as the most absolutely beautiful baby
ever born and soon became the smartest and quickest and friendliest
child that ever lived. Trust me on this one – it’s all true. Once she
started school she became the light of her teacher’s eye and the best
friend to the kids in her class. She excelled in all subjects and with
all people. She is truly that remarkable and beautiful and darn near as
close to perfect as young lady can be. It seems that only yesterday
I watched in absolute awe as Megan came into my world and nothing had
been the same for me sense. My little girl quickly became the focal
point of my world and when her brother and little sister came along I
knew that there truly was a much higher purpose than me. These precious
little souls are the greatest gift ever given. And my Megan started this
incredible journey for me. It is a journey that gets better every day.
It seems like only yesterday
when Megan said her first word….yes, it was Daddy!! That is a fact that
I keep alive and well in our household much to her Mother’s chagrin.
From the day Megan was born her mom and I told her she was special and
that we loved her. Throughout the day her Mom and I would love on her
and hold her and we also took great care to tell her we loved her as
often as possible. This is a practice that has carried on to this day.
Megan hears that she is loved at least 6-10 times every day. She has
heard that since the day she was born. I am pretty confident she
believes it by now.
It seems like only yesterday
when Megan took her first steps…yes, she turned loose of the coffee
table and waddled into the arms of her Daddy!! Again, chagrins and all.
From the moment Meg started walking we cheered for her and told her how
graceful she was and when walking turned into running we constantly
praised her athletic abilities. And from that first step we began
teaching Meg that there were places she could go with her newfound
freedom and there were places she should not. A toddler should never
venture into a bathroom or pool area or outside alone. A child should
never venture away from home alone. A teen should never be in a place
where drugs are used or alcohol is a focal point. We cheered Megan’s
mobility as we began teaching her boundaries.
It seems like only yesterday
when Megan started school. Her Mom and I stood outside her kindergarten
class as she excitedly began her academic life. When we first took her
into that big and foreign room there were tears and a little bit of
screaming but after 15 minutes or so I was able to calm Momma down and
peel her away from Meg’s desk. From the moment Megan began school we
told her that she was friendship worthy and deserved great friends. We
also taught her that friendship meant sharing and talking nice and
never, never, never being ugly or bullying towards other kids. Megan has
a genuinely sweet spirit and I will never forget her 3rd
grade teacher telling me how Megan always went into the cafeteria at
lunch time and if she saw someone sitting alone or not talking she sat
next to that person and that was her friend for lunch. Megan really is
that special.
It seems like only yesterday
that Megan started middle school and her childhood beauty began
transforming into the beauty of a young lady. After making sure that all
of the boys in her class fully understood that I am a very large man
and a former college defensive lineman and that going to prison to
protect my daughter’s honor was not a problem for me, Sylvia and I
decided to foment expectations. We have rules in our home that boys open
the doors for girls, that’s not sexist it is polite. We have rules that
there are topics of conversation that Meg’s little brother can have
with me but they are off limits for his sisters. We have rules that when
a boy and girl arrive at a place at the same time the girl goes first.
Again, that’s not sexist it is polite. We have a rule that if a girl is
carrying something that the boy will offer to help, again – polite and
all.
With
Meg’s rapidly approaching womanhood my wife had the wonderful idea that
we needed to take it a step farther and incorporate a Daddy/Daughter
date night. Hey, I’m game! An evening on the town with my precious
little girl? Awesome! But we took it a step farther. My wife and I
talked about it and decided that I would over-emphasize the door
opening, and lady first, and appropriate topics of conversation and
would explain why at each step. Then I would remind Meg how loved she is
and how precious she is and how she is a lady and she deserves to be
treated as a lady and as special and as loved and then I showed her what
that meant by opening her door and pulling out her chair and deferring
to her to walk first. I told her over and over that any boy that ever
wanted to be close to her should meet these lofty standards or else he
wasn’t good enough for her. And yes, I mean every word of that.
It seems like only yesterday
when a boy developed a hard crush on Megan. He followed her around and
wrote her notes and called her. He showed up at her school activities
and told everyone that she was his girl. Megan came to me and told me
that she had asked him to calm it down and that she just wanted to be
friends but he wouldn’t relent. She asked me to help. After plotting
burial locations I went to the boy’s home and talked face to face with
his father. My first thought was to, well – let’s not go there. Instead,
I reminded myself that this was the Daddy of a young teen who probably
thought his little boy was the best thing since sliced bread. I
explained what was happening and that Meg just wanted to be friends and
that I needed his help with proper boundaries. He agreed. I also talked
to Meg’s teacher and asked her to keep an eye on the situation just to
make sure everything was ok. Then, I made sure my little girl knew that
she did the right thing by talking to her Daddy and that her Daddy would
always be there if and when she needed him. I talked to her and told
her that there is no problem that exists that is greater or bigger than
the love her mom and I have for her. And then I explained how I backed
those words up with actions and showed her that I meant what I said.
It seems like only yesterday
when Megan started driving and she began spreading her independent
wings. I have spent much time in prayer for her safety and I am
constantly checking her tire pressure and oil pressure and reminding her
that texting and driving will result in her car being sold and her not
driving again until she is 41. It seems like only yesterday
when I got the scariest call of my life and my little 16 year old girl
was driving herself to volleyball practice when another girl who was
texting crashed into her totaling our Expedition (a large SUV that is
hard to total). I will never forget the fear in her voice when she
called me and cried, “Daddy, I just had a bad wreckâ€. I don’t remember
my feet hitting the ground as I ran to my car to get to her. My wife’s
brand new Expedition was bent in half and straddling the curb with
broken glass and parts everywhere but the only thing I remember seeing
as I pulled up was my little girl standing on the curb crying. I ran
through the intersection to get to her and comfort her and make sure she
was OK. I made sure she knew that the car was very secondary to her
being ok. I aged 10 years that morning.
It seems like yesterday
when my little girl sat for the ACTs and SATs and scored so high that
she has colleges chasing her. I check the mail every day and cringe when
I see a letter from a school that is more than a couple of hours drive
away. I listen to her talk excitedly about going to college soon and I
can hear the countdown of her last year at home beating like a drum in
my head. It seems like only yesterday I walked her to her first desk and
helped her put her crayons in the box.
Yesterday…
…my beautiful Megan got dressed up in
the second prettiest dress I have ever seen. Her Momma spent an hour on
her hair and they got a manicure and pedicure and she put on beautiful
silver sequined shoes and the doorbell rang and her first date was at my
door, corsage in hand, to take her to the junior/senior social – the
prom. Yesterday my little girl walked through the door and it wasn’t my hand she was holding.
Yesterday my little girl got into the car and it wasn’t Daddy driving.
Yesterday my little girl sat and ate and talked and walked and laughed
with another, not me.
As I watched Megan leave I was thrilled
and excited for her and believe it or not, I wasn’t even worried. Megan
has heard that she is loved and she is valuable her whole life. Her
self-concept does not and will not depend on a boy for fulfillment.
Megan has been treated like a lady and has been taught that any young
man worthy of her company will do the same. She has been taught to
expect it and accept nothing less. Megan has been taught how to act like
a lady in word, in action, and in beauty of spirit and how to reach out
to her Mom and I should she need us.
Yesterday my little girl spread her independent wings a little further.
I wasn’t sad or scared or even worried. Every step of Megan’s life has
been a journey that I have been blessed to be a part of and I can’t wait
for the next step. Megan is Megan. She is a self confident, self
assured, kind-hearted, intelligent, beautiful young lady who knows
exactly who she is, how she should be treated, and what to do when
things go right and what to do when things go wrong. And none of that is
by accident.
Yesterday came and went so fast, thank God Megan is Megan….
It is that time of the year again for
our middle and high school students. It is the time when a year’s worth
of facts and lessons and demonstrations and labs will be measured
through recollection, recitation, sleep deprivation, and self
flagellation in an event known as Finals Week. Finals week is a
bittersweet time, because there is no more stressful week of the school
year but at the same time there is a light at the end of the tunnel
known as summer. That light can be the motivator and also the
distractor. You also have kids who know the material, have memorized the
facts, have done their homework along the way, but they are scared to
death because they know they are not good test takers.
Some of our best classroom participants just don’t test well. Let’s see if we can help them.
Test anxiety is a very real thing. Now
before you role your eyes and think I am throwing one more diagnosis out
there, I am not. What I am talking about is the anxiousness and
self-doubt that many students feel when they are about to take a test.
There is a very real and certain stress that creates a physical
reaction that actually impedes memory and clear thinking for some of our
best and brightest students. You know who those students are and so do they.
Test anxiety is no different than generalized anxiety.
It just has the testing process as a
trigger mechanism for the onset of stress induced symptoms. Symptoms of
acute stress include: perspiration, sweaty palms, headaches, upset
stomach, rapid heartbeat, and tense muscles. These symptoms produce a
vascular reaction that is distracting and even painful.
Imagine:sitting
down to take a test and suddenly your palms are sweating and you feel
heat on the back of your neck. Your eyes begin to hurt because your
headache has migrated into the space right behind your eyes. You stomach
feels like it is churning and your just feel tight all over. Now try to
remember those algebraic equations and the dates of all of the battles
of the civil war and the structural breakdown of complex sentences and
the digestive track of the earthworm.That’s what is happening to some of your students.
Before we talk about how to help them let’s talk about some causes and preventative steps.
What are the most common causes of test anxiety?
Here you go:
These study issues are compounded by
students worrying about how they will do on this test because of past
failures. There are also students who worry how they are doing compared
to friends and other students, and there are even some students who test
poorly because of fear of testing poorly. They develop their own
self-fulfilling prophecy, because the fear of failure leads to the
stress that causes a physical reaction and diminishes concentration and
recollection.
When preparation issues and/or
self-confidence issues couples with fear and worry, and stress occurs,
then the student becomes nervous and stressed.
The actual symptoms of nervousness are:
Having difficulty reading and comprehending what is being read
Having difficulty organizing thoughts
Having difficult retrieving key words
Having difficulty retrieving key concepts
Mental Blocking
Going blank on questions
Remembering the answer after the test is over.
So how do you help your students who are prone to test anxiety?
How to you help them calm down and recollect and recognize and perform?
There are three relatively easy things you can do, but it will take buy-in and effort from your students. Here you go:
Preparation: If your students are not prepared then being calm won’t matter.
If a student who is prone to test-stress
if poorly prepared then you are pretty much guaranteed a stress
reaction which will make a bad situation even worse. There is no way
around a student having to take notes and use notes and reading
assignments and learning along the way. If they are learning along the
way then studying is a refresher for the memory.If they are cramming the
night before then they are setting themselves up as prime candidates
for stress and all its side effects.
Relaxing: Help your students test better by teaching them acute stress breakers.
These are activities that are designed
to distract the mind from the activity that is causing stress and allow
the student to take a break from the stress and lower its level a
little. These activities are mental and physical distracters that allow a
quick recharge of intellectual capacity. Talk to your students about
using these following when they feel themselves getting stressed or when
they can’t remember the answer to a questions they do know:
take long deep breaths
count to 10 while looking up
close your eyes for a count of 5
clinch your fists for 5 seconds and then release
stretch your legs and hold for a count of 5
clasp your hands and squeeze for a count of 5
write your name 3 times
Environment: There are things you can do to your classroom to make it as conducive as possible for ready recollection and calm testing.
Try the following:
Minimize Noise
Lighting – use at least a 75 watt bulb
Temperature- it is better to be cool than warm
Neatness- be ready to study & test
Comfort – but not too comfortable
Equipment – a desk is best
Stress is a very real performance inhibitor, and test stress is a very real cause of diminished academic performance. Give
your students the best opportunity to succeed by helping them prepare,
teaching them stress reduction tips, and making your room as compatible
as possible for testing. You and your students will be glad you did!
Each day brings its own
set of worries. I worry about bills and how I am going to pay for
college for my kids. I worry about work and the never ending chase for
financial security. As a father, I worry about my kids and how they are
growing and learning and maturing and whether or not I am doing all that
I should. Worry is something I try to leave behind, but it is always there.
When I stop and think about the things that worry me, I realize they
are mostly “what ifsâ€. I worry about scenarios that are possible but
they haven’t happened. I worry about decisions that could be made but
they haven’t been. I worry about events taking down my business, but
those have not occurred.
This morning I drove my
kids to the Department of Public Safety, a large complex in Austin,
Texas that houses our state troopers and highway patrolmen. Today is the
culmination of a week of memorial for fallen officers, and the final
event was a bike ride of nearly 140 miles by DPS officers that ended at
the complex. My kids were there with their church friends to sing at a
ceremony for the officers being memorialized as well as the officers who
rode in the tribute ride.
It was an absolutely
beautiful day in Austin, and we arrived at the complex early so we stood
under a large tree. The temperature was hovering around 74 and there
was a breeze that was strong enough to cool you but light enough to be
nothing but pleasant. I watched my kids visiting with their friends and I
felt my mind wondering to an upcoming business trip and soon I
was worrying about my travel arrangements and my meeting schedule and
the expense of the trip and the consequences of whether or not it would
be a productive trip.
As I stood under the
tree in that perfect weather in that beautiful setting letting my mind
bring me down in worry, I began to hear cheering. I turned and saw the
processional of officers and supporters on their bicycles coming in from
their last 40 mile leg of the tribute ride. Leading the pack was a
pickup with a large American flag, Texas flag, and a flag symbolizing
fallen officers. Inside the truck was a driver I recognized from this
event in years’ past, but there were also two women in the cab with him
and this was new.
I have been to this
event each year for the past several years so I know the drill. It is a
somber ceremony. The flag is presented to the honor guard and names of
brave men and women who died while serving their communities are read as
a bugler plays the mournful tunes of Taps. The playing of
those slow moving and achingly beautiful notes as the names of fallen
men and women are read is an experience I look forward to with absolute
dread. It is a beautifully sad experience that absolutely quiets the worrying voices inside each person.
After
the playing of Taps, an officer comes forward and speaks for a moment
about the solemnity of loss and the comfort of the brotherhood of
officers. He speaks of sacrifice, something that needs much more attention among kids and adults today.
He speaks of willingness to sacrifice and how men and women every day
put themselves in harm’s way for each of us. His sincerity is
unquestioned and his words are piercing. They always are. But this year
he did something different.
After his stirring yet
familiar speech, he called the two women to come to him. These were the
women who were in the front of the pickup as the processional came into
the compound. He introduced these two ladies, and as he did I began to
recognize their names. These were the wives of the two most recently killed officers.
These two ladies had ridden in the lead truck of the processional of
bicycles for all these miles because they were remembering, through this
outpouring of love and brotherhood, their husbands who had been killed
while serving the citizens of this great state.
As Officer Gallinda
introduced these ladies, suddenly the names that were read had a face. I
saw real people standing in front of me with tears of both mournful
loss and at the same time appreciation of recognition. Holding Officer Gallinda’s hand, one of the ladies spoke and she simply said, “Thank you for remembering.â€
Wow…
“Thank you for rememberingâ€.
A few minutes earlier I
was leaning against a tree worrying about the best flight route between
Austin and Madison. I was worrying about the cost of the ticket and all
of the work I needed to finish before that trip. I was worried about the
implications of these coming meetings and how they could be a real game
changer for my company. I was worried about things that all had a great big “what if†tacked onto them.
Now I was brought quickly and somberly into the very real here and now by 4 words, “Thank you for rememberingâ€.
I stood there and could no longer hold back the tear that I fought
during the playing of Taps. This was too real. It was too tangible. I
could look and see true pain yet appreciation in the face of these two
women. They were grateful for all the people standing in memorial to
their husbands and their fellow fallen officers, yet there was no doubt
they were wishing their husbands were standing beside them. Instead,
their husbands were represented by nameplates on a wall that served as
the center of the memorial service.
I listened to my kids
and their friends sing “Amazing Grace†and “God Bless Americaâ€. The
group was 40 or so middle and high schoolers and they definitely
wouldn’t have won any competitions with their rendition of the two
songs, but it was perfect for the officers and especially for the two
widows. As mothers, they needed to see that real kids were there
to appreciate and remember their husbands who gave themselves to keep
my kids safe. They needed to hear real voices straining on the
high notes and missing the low notes because that is what real kids
sound like, and these kids were there on a beautiful Saturday to
remember.
We left the ceremony and I felt a great deal of guilt for my worries. So today, I promise not to spend any more mental energy worrying. Instead, I will honor the simple but perfect words and request of the wife of a fallen officer.
