Rebecca Zook - Math Tutoring Online

Having students write about their anxiety before a high-stakes test, for 10 minutes, can reduce or eliminate the performance loss caused by nerves, a new study finds.

Before Test 2, the students either sat quietly for 10 minutes or wrote about what they were feeling. The nonwriters “choked,” the researchers said, with their scores dropping by 12 percentage points. But those who wrote about their anxiety raised their scores by four percentage points. Also, in field studies in real high-school biology classes, students with high text anxiety scored the equivalent of a B-plus on a final exam when they did the writing exercise, and B-minus when they didn’t. “Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom,” Gerardo Ramirez and Sian L. Beilock, Science (January)–(From the Wall Street Journal (January 22-23, 2011))

The fact that it would actually help students’ grades to write about their anxiety for a full TEN minutes RIGHT BEFORE taking a test completely flies in the face of the standard advice in our culture to “think positive thoughts” and “visualize success.”

While I believe this advice is well-intentioned, what seems to happen is that people start to hate themselves for feeling afraid, or become even more nervous because they are nervous! Attempting to control your own thoughts just causes people to pathologize their own minds.

Many students believe if they hide their fear, it will go away, or at least, no one else will know. In my experience both as a tutor and as as student, this does not work at all. Openly discussing your anxiety–or even just admitting it to yourself–makes it possible to release it. (I used to get totally stressed out about math growing up, and when one of my best friends in high school shared this article with me about math anxiety, it made me so relieved. There was a name for what I struggled with! And I wasn’t alone! Phew!!!)

So this study really resonates with me. A lot of the students who come to work with me have some kind of anxiety about math–and don’t even know that it’s something that happens to other people, too. Part of our work together isn’t just mastering the material, but also openly discussing their fears and how to deal with overwhelming emotions when working on challenging material under pressure. The only way we can work on this stuff is if we talk about it together.

And now, it’s amazing to see that students can get such good results from writing about it on their own at such a crucial moment, right before taking a test.

Student’s Math Anxiety Bill of Rights
by Sandra Davis

I have the right to learn at my own pace and not feel put down or stupid if I’m slower than someone else.
I have the right to ask whatever questions I have.
I have the right to need extra help.
I have the right to ask a teacher or tutor for help.
I have the right to say I don’t understand.
I have the right to not understand.
I have the right to feel good about myself regardless of my abilities in math.
I have the right not to base my self-worth on my math skills.
I have the right to view myself as capable of learning math.
I have the right to evaluate my math instructors and how they teach.
I have the right to relax.
I have the right to be treated as a competent person.
I have the right to dislike math.
I have the right to define success in my own terms.

One of my best friends found this in high school and shared it with me, and I remember thinking it was amazing and wishing I had known about it earlier. While these rights now seem basic to me, if I had read them in middle school or high school, I think they would have been a revelation.

I really want my students to know that they have the right to ask whatever questions they have. (I’m still shocked to hear how some teachers will tell their students that they won’t answer their questions because if a student has a question it must be because the student wasn’t “paying attention.”) If a student is discerning enough to know what they have a question about, and courageous enough to actually ask it, that should be encouraged!

I also think it’s important that students realize that they can evaluate their teachers and how they teach. For teachers, this might be the scariest aspect of the Math Bill of Rights.

I can speak from experience on this. The one time I gave a copy of the Rights to a student, I was fearful that I might not be the right person to help her. But I thought the Rights might help her, and I didn’t want to not share a resource with her just because reading it might cause her to realize that she should be working with another tutor. And I realized that my ultimate goal was to make sure that she got the help she really needed, even if it wasn’t from me.

I’m not sure if the Rights were at all responsible, but shortly after I gave them to her we had a huge breakthrough and her understanding really improved. But it was one of the scarier things I’ve done as an instructor, and I can see why teachers might not want to plaster this everywhere…

But I wish that each math student in the world could have their own personal copy emblazoned on their binder or even their math book cover.