This summer I was really excited about visiting Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. This remote park is a highlight of the Canadian Badlands because of the important research and finds for, not surprisingly, dinosaur bones and other fossils. It was to be my first UNESCO World Heritage Site visit and we booked our tours several months in advance to reserve our spaces.
I was nervous, anxious if you will, and this became the foundation for my learning and remembering for what it’s like to be a student who doesn’t perform well in my subject area.
As a high school English teacher, having students (and adults!) tell me, repeatedly, that they don’t like “my” subject and they don’t do well in English class is pretty standard. It’s often the opening sentences of our initial meeting. I know it has nothing to do with me and it has little to do with how I teach since we haven’t actually worked together. But it is the foundation from which I have to build.
Finding out the source of why students don’t like English often stems from past negative experiences, misconceptions of what the course is about and what it includes, and a sense that they won’t achieve the mark they want - that English classes are hard.
I can work through most of the excuses and explanations over the course of a semester to have students like my class even if they still “don’t like English” and they can offer statements that support the value of the material covered and the assignments given. That’s often where I take my win from our time together.
But sometimes it is important to reaffirm our empathy for students who struggle in our classes. Particularly with the students who experience real anxiety. Dinosaur Provincial Park gave me some great reminders.
1. Anxiety is normal for students who struggle. It comes from fear. I was afraid as a visitor to Dinosaur Provincial Park (PP). You might think it was because of the rattlesnakes and the scorpions. That would seem logical. In my case, those “reasons” were way down the list. I was afraid of embarrassment and humiliation. What a great feeling to carry as part of my vacation plan. But it’s the same feeling our students live with in our classroom. Let me explain. It’s pretty clear that I, like 27% of other adult Canadians, am classified as obese. I have good mobility, good health, and go about my daily life with little encumbrance or struggle with this not so secret health concern. Now we factor in really poor coordination and agility. These have been present (actually absent) my whole life. I’ve always, even as a healthy kid, struggled with athleticism of any kind. This forms the root of fear. I’ve had previous occasions of embarrassment and ridicule when it came to sports, phys ed. class, etc.. I was the kid and am the adult who is covered in bruises from walking through/into door frames and from falling over while tying my shoes.
As a student with a history of failure and humiliation in a subject, why would I assume that it wouldn’t repeat itself the next time? And I signed up for a physical activity at Dinosaur PP that I knew I was going to be bad at.
2. Preparation and practice help, but aren’t the solution. Our first thought as teachers is to help a student who is struggling or failing by giving them lots of practice and more preparation time. If fear is the root and anxiety has taken hold, more of what appears to be the same, isn’t going to move the student forward. What was I afraid of at Dinosaur PP? The hike that I signed my husband and I up for so we could see the Centrosaurus bonebed. What was I afraid of on a hike that was listed as “moderate” and fast paced? Not being able to complete it and having everyone in the group held up while waiting for me. That was the surface. What if I actually hurt myself and had to be evacuated out with assistance from the Badlands? That would be worse. This is embarrassment and humiliation based anxiety.
I tried to assuage my fears the first day in Dinosaur PP by attempting a hike that was listed as moderate with just my partner. He’s used to me failing in physical activities so embarrassment risk was mitigated. We drove to the hiking location at 7:30 at night and we were the only ones in the parking lot. We had the entire trail to ourselves so I could take as long as I wanted and figure out how to navigate without an audience. Listed as moderate, same as the one for the tour, seemed to me they should be similar.
I completed the practice hike without incident. I didn’t think it was that difficult. I wasn’t going to take someone with mobility issues out on the uneven walking surface, and yes, there were steep hills to climb up and down, but I got through it without a significant moment of crisis. As a teacher, this would lead me to the moment where I’d tell a student about how the practice success of this short hike was the hallmark and indicator of future success on the longer hike.
It didn’t make me feel better. One completed hike listed at moderate was not the indicator of future success and I’m not dumb enough to buy that one equals another one. I’ve had enough failure that one in the win column wasn’t going to undo the fear. That’s the same as our students. Finishing the practice test should be an indicator of how the real test will be. It isn’t. If the practice test were evaluated and used as the mark for reporting, then it would be the win. Completing the assessment hasn’t dealt with all of the baggage that is about to arrive for the real test or evaluation and any student who has failed previously many times knows this already.
3. Communication is key and struggling students are liars. Day of the hike arrives and I’m a mess on the inside. Super cool on the outside. Mess on the inside. My digestive system was giving me away and I’m thinking of using it as an excuse to bail. When my husband asks how I am, I lie. Just like every student who doesn’t want others to know about the anxiety that is currently controlling their every thought and every movement, I say I’m fine. When I look around the class (the tour group) it’s easy to see that I’m the one that is the weakest, most likely to fail. At least, that’s what I see and what my anxiety barometer is telling me. There are kids and seniors that are going to put me to shame. Yup, shame has entered the equation. There is no positive self-talk that is going to make this hike easier/ better/ successful.
Now is when we need to redefine the success criteria. For many of our students, grades are the indicators of success and failure. This hike was the reminder for me that I need to rethink and change my communication with students about their success criteria. For a student who “can’t” present in the front of the class, what would be their success? Presenting in front of a small group? Recording the presentation to be played in front of the class? For a student who has never finished reading a book, what is their success criteria? For a student who has test anxiety, what is their measure of success? Does it matter what the grade is if a student “can’t” attend class because of debilitating fear?
Opening up honest communication with our struggling students is paramount. We need to be ready to celebrate non-graded victories with our kids in a real, not demeaning way. If we don’t know the struggle that a student is facing internally, we may misread the decisions that are made. If a student skips a test, do we really know the underlying reason? What are we as teachers doing to address it and help them to move forward in the future?
We have to understand why and what the fear is really about.
4. Peer support is crucial. The teacher can’t be the only one to come alongside a struggling student. Caring adults are essential to the success of a student, but deliberate orchestrated support by peers is often the difference maker. Let me show you from the hike what I mean. Our tour guide led the group, told great stories, reminded us to drink our water, set the pace and kept the group safe. Everyone made it to the boneyard and everyone returned. It would by his account have been a successful tour. He stopped at the checkpoints, he offered cool downs with a spray bottle, and he asked the group how they were doing. The group, collectively, was good to go. As the struggling member of the group (clearly flushed and breathing hard) there wasn’t a personal check-in with the guide. I’m sure he must have known but didn’t centre me out to ask how it was going. That was the right thing to do, right?
I made it through the hike because of my husband. He stayed with me when I slowed down even though he could have kept up with the leaders of the pack. He pointed out where to place my feet on rocks as we navigated through a dry creek bed and scrambled over uneven surfaces. He took my hand to help boost me when we had to climb up some rocks. He reminded me to slow down as we went sliding/ walking down an incline so I wouldn’t have a fight with gravity. He pointed out the cactus that was growing in the path so I didn’t stumble into it to add to my misery. He checked to see if I drank water and if I needed to put on my hat to avoid baking my brain in the Badlands. He was a peer who didn’t need to hang out with the weakest in the class but he did (because of wedding vows 20 years ago and a fear of what would happen if he’d left me to die in the desert, I’m sure were factors) and he was helpful, not just a cheerleader.
As a teacher, I could see that having the right partner made a difference to my success, which was completing the hike without injury. He was still able to complete the hike; I didn’t hold him back, just made him slower. He was able to wander about at the boneyard while I recovered so he wasn’t asked to compromise on his goals for the outing. And he was able to find purpose in helping and using his skills (that he can lord over me on other occasions). He was the right peer to help me through my anxiety and to share in my successful completion.
Assigning me any skilled hiker wouldn’t have made me complete the tour. Pairing me with the best hiker in the group would have shown me how inadequately prepared I was for the tour and I would have bailed before the hike began. Assigning me a partner who told me I was great and to keep it up would have resulted in me assaulting them or at least swearing at them while telling them to shut up. I needed someone who I could trust to not mock me and who could give helpful guidance. Could the tour guide have done this for me like a teacher in the classroom? No. It wouldn’t have been a realistic expectation just like, as the classroom teacher, I can’t always leave the other 29 in the class to go and assist the 1 with the level of support and instruction that they need while battling their internal demons.
As the classroom teacher I need to know what my students need to be successful and do everything in my power to help move students forward. Sometimes that means I have to delegate or call in others to assist. A peer can be a powerful teacher too. I would never assign a partnership when it is detrimental to the non-anxious person. Nor would I assign a peer to someone who is afraid if it will position them for embarrassment.
Ultimately it’s about relationships. We need to know our students. Our students need to trust us, their teacher, to be mindful of the needs that are about curriculum and the needs that are personal. We also need our students to be in relationship with each other. Assigning a stranger on the hike to me would have been a deal breaker. I would think a student with anxiety or fear also needs someone in their life that they can have a degree of trust with.
Outcome?
I completed the hike. I will confess that I fell down once and adrenaline and fear forced me to finish. I wasn’t sure I’d make it back up the final hill but fear of slowing the group down gave me the final push to end the misery.
Was it worth it? No. I’m not going to give you a movie finish here where the moment at the top after the struggle made all the hard parts disappear. I wouldn’t sign up for it again. I didn’t enjoy my moment at the top at the bonebed because I knew I had to do the entire hike in reverse to get back to the tour bus. This did not suddenly turn me into someone I’m not.
I can say, I did it. I can say, I was at the bonebed and I saw dinosaur bones sticking out of the earth which is indeed really cool. And I can say that I was reminded of how hard it is for some of our students every single day in the classroom and in our schools.
We need to be clearly defining what is success and it needs to match each of our students based on where they are and what they need.
I was successful because I was not airlifted out of Dinosaur Provincial Park.
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