Teacher Test Anxiety

Examiner column for May 1.   

     It’s four days until the test. Four days. Each May I suffer from test anxiety. One hundred six of my charges will be sitting for the Advanced Placement Literature exam this Thursday.

    Ironically, students seem relaxed; I am the basket case.

    My students missed the Anxiety 101 classes you and I took. As the test approaches, they continue to check text messages surreptitiously under their desks.

    In the “dry run” test last week, one otherwise intelligent student wrote on 1984 when he could have chosen any novel or play. The problem? He couldn’t remember the main character’s name: “For the purposes of this essay, I will just call him Bob.”  He didn’t care enough to choose a novel he remembered well.

    The contrast between my mood and my students’ was even clearer to me Friday, the last class day before the test. As they sauntered into the room, I was poised for action. I had an agenda; I had a mission. I wanted to review two novels and a play in ninety minutes.

    “Ninety minutes,” they remarked, “just enough time to watch a movie!”

    Shannon arrived balancing six balloons, two cakes, and a dozen cupcakes---gifts from friends on her birthday. “How can anyone have a birthday right before the big test?” I thought, unreasonably.

    Reason prevailing, we all sang happy birthday. But then it was time for test prep.

    I read aloud two brilliant essays from the dry run, (the one about Bob not one of them.) Authors Michelle and Rebekah are models of the perfect AP student: bright and still diligent, despite their acceptances to the University of Virginia.

    “Hearing their words might lead others to pattern themselves after these paragons of virtue,” I thought.

    Not fifteen minutes later, my Virtuous Two were eating a piece of Shannon’s birthday cake and doing calculus homework, respectively. 

    Yet I let these transgressions slide, knowing both will ace the test despite my anxiety. Rebekah had the grace to blush.

    I should worry instead about the  “stealth dreamers”: they are distracted but daydream under my radar. They stare ahead and nod, yet don’t hear a word.

    All this contributes to teacher angst in May, an otherwise beautiful month. Could I have done something differently? Should I have been meaner? Nicer? More interactive? More didactic?

    And how will they do on this week’s exam? The words every teacher dreads are: “The test was easy.”  That means student and teacher alike are doomed.

    Because the test is never easy. As I learn each year when I help grade the AP Lit exam, each passage is complicated and rich with nuance. The best students will recognize that, will make a valiant effort to capture the complexities in a short period of time, and will feel inadequate to the task.

    I, too, feel inadequate to my task. Students are as puzzling and complicated as the passages they explicate. So I face a different kind of “test.” How will I do? 

    Will their scores, arriving mid-July, tell me? My “score” is probably unquantifiable. Maybe even their learning is unquantifiable.

     But at least in July, I will sleep better---until next year.

Comments

[R. Friend]

Having just been yelled at by a 17 year old daughter suffering from night-before the AP English Language exam angst, I can testify that some students do feel it. I don't think they realize for a moment that their teachers feel it, too.

[Erica]

Ah, but your daughter is a JUNIOR. The secret to the stress-free test is to be a senior, who truly doesn't care after about February. But I hope she aced the test which---whoa---was about blogging and democracy!

[Anne ROberts]

I just found a great site for teacher resources. It is called Links for Learning, www.links-for-learning.com. Great help for students during testing time and the prices were really reasonable. I know as a teacher I have sent many of my students here for extra help that is hard to give during this stressful time.