Student Test Taking Anxiety is 99% on Us

I have heard the horror stories about students freaking out for STAAR.  And I don’t doubt them and here is the reason why. Starting at the beginning of the Spring Semester and continuing until the day of the test, teachers and administrators get more and more stressed out about the test.  The stakes are high, there is too much to teach and we have reams of data showing us that we aren’t anywhere close to having our students ready.  And we transmit and transfer all of that stress straight to our students.  Show me stressed students and I’ll show you adults wound tighter than clocks springs and doing a poor job of hiding it.

That’s the key, we have to mask our stress, stay in positive character and keep the classroom nurturing and rewarding.  I’ll give you two examples of what this looks like in other settings. 

The Disney Cast: At Disneyland, when the cast is in the park, they are always in character. It is the happiest place on Earth.  But behind the scenes, Mickey smokes, Goofy doesn’t like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty is on an improvement plan. And not one guest is aware of any of this. Always stay in positive character while students are in the building.

The Coaching Staff of the Underdog:  The coaches know that they are outmanned, that their team is too small and too slow to compete with the team on the schedule this week. For this coaching staff, a win will be to escape with no injuries.  But that is in the Coaches’ Office.  The players have no idea how dire the situation is.  What they know is that they have a good game plan and if they work hard as a team, execute the plan and don’t turn over the ball they will probably win. Always keep the focus on the positive outcome of executing the plan.

That is our job, stay in character and project confident optimism.  When I hear the test taking anxiety horror stories I think back on a student at an exceedingly high performing Title One school explaining why no one was freaking out about the upcoming state test. “Why should we be worried, we have hope.”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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A Reader Writes... (Game On! - Part 2)

In response to the posts referencing “Game On!” a reader asks:

“What is Game On?”

SC Response
Game On is the LYS professional learning community on steroids. It structures the entire campus in a way to motivate students to work hard every day and provide the staff an opportunity to conduct continuous action research. This entire structure is disguised as a game. Think of Disney World, the kids are fully engaged in the task at hand, while behind the scenes every “magical moment” is entirely purposeful. Game On teachers simply work differently than their peers, but it isn’t like flipping a switch. Instead of “walking the walk,” Game On teachers are “running the run.”

And Game On works like nothing else: Here’s just a small sample of what the Game On Campuses achieved this year.

Houston - A dead school walking, two years ago it was announced that this Title I school would be closed at the end of this year (a freeway was built 100 yards from the campus). They are closing the door as Recognized (without TPM).

Austin – This Title I school, with a rookie late hire principal and a rookie late hire AP, is Exemplary for the first time.

McFee – This Title I school with the reputation of having some of the toughest students in its district is solid Recognized (without TPM).

Lee – This Title I school is Exemplary for the first time (without TPM).

Hairgrove – This Title I school (second poorest out of over 50 campuses in its district) has scores in the top 5 in its district. It too is Exemplary (without TPM).

If you are interested in Game On for your campus, just send me an e-mail and I’ll get back to you, but for now I’ll close with a Game On! Principal quote, “If we got our rating due to TPM, we wouldn’t give it back, but we would put an asterisk next to it.”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

A Reader Writes... (Engaging Students)

In response to the post, "When Does Your School Start and End," a reader writes:

"The biggest problem my school has is that the faculty is disengaged from the students. It seems to be a hard problem to solve."

SC Response
This is a difficult issue on almost every campus. It's not that every teacher is disengaged from every student. It is the fact that teachers pick and choose both when they will engage and who they will engage with. What makes this insidious is that when you pick and choose when to engage, your mind thinks that you are engaged all the time. The result is that at any one time, significant numbers of students are left bobbing in the wake, like flotsam and jetsam.

So how do you combat this? I think there are a number of strategies. First, is awareness. Just as Hyper-monitoring holds a mirror to instructional practice, you need to hold a mirror to teacher / student relationships. You can do this through regular observation by the administrative staff and/or by using an external coach. My opinion is that the external coach would actually see the extent of the problem more clearly.

Second, talk about the issue. Leadership has to be a broken record in communicating the expectation that teachers engage with all students, all the time. I was recently on a campus that is dealing with this issue and the coaching framework we are using is Disney World. At Disney World, when the cast is above ground, in the park, they are always in character. No exceptions. In schools, as soon as we get out of our car in the morning, we have to be in character, until we get back in the car at night. We can't pick and choose when we will be in "teaching" mode during the day. Kids get regularly and frequently trampled when we operate in this way.

Third, use site visits. Take a team of your teacher to another campus and have them observe the student / staff interactions. It is easier to see our weakness in others than it is to see them in ourselves. And once we visualize the problem, we are in a better position to correct it.

Finally, you may just need to remove the staffer. Schools do not exist to provide steady paychecks to anyone who shows up. They exist to teach students and serve the community. If you are stubbornly hanging on to convenient habits that are detrimental to kids, then you have to go. As I remind everyone I work with, the only unforgivable sin is not being coachable.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...