158. Test Anxiety Isn’t Just Nerves—Here’s What Students Really Need

You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy.

I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students.

If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place. Because we're better together.

Ready to chat.

Let's dive in.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. I'm your host, Carol Miller. And today we're talking about something that's showing up in classrooms everywhere right now.

Test anxiety.

And if you've been in classrooms lately,

you probably heard things like, I don't get it, I'm gonna fail,

I'm not ready for this.

Or maybe you're not hearing much at all.

And that's actually where I wanna start today.

Because here's the truth.

Testing anxiety isn't always obvious.

I think we tend to picture test anxiety as the student who's just visibly nervous.

But a lot of times it shows up as avoidance,

shutting down,

acting silly, getting off task,

getting frustrated, quickly saying, I don't care.

And sometimes it looks like a student putting their head down and refusing to even try.

And if we're not careful, we can misinterpret that as they're not trying, they don't care.

When really they care a lot,

they just don't feel capable.

And this time of year, it doesn't help because April brings the perfect storm of testing pressure, end of year fatigue,

higher expectations.

And all of that builds into one thing.

Overwhelm.

There's a story,

and I love that. I often think about the story this time of year.

It's called the crack pot. I don't know if you've ever heard it, but it goes like this.

There was a water bearer who carried two pots on a pole.

One pot was perfect,

but the other had a crack every day.

By the time they reached their destination,

the cracked pot had lost half its water.

And the cracked pot, it felt like a failure.

One day it apologized and said,

I'm so sorry, I'm not doing my job.

But the water bearer smiled and said,

did you notice the flowers along your side of the path?

I planted seeds there and every day you watered them.

Now when I think about that story, I think about our students during testing season because so many of them feel like the crackpot they see what they don't know, what they get wrong, how they compare to others.

And they start to believe something must be wrong with me.

But what they don't always see is that growth is happening.

The effort, the progress,

the small wins along the way.

And sometimes they need us to help them see that.

Just like the water bear tone with the flowers.

So what's happening in their brains?

Let's talk about what's actually going on for our kids.

And this is something I think you can explain in a really simple,

kid friendly way. I tell students,

listen, your brain has one job to keep you safe.

And when your brain thinks something is stressful, like a big test,

it flips into alarm mode.

And when that happens, your heart beats faster,

your brain feels foggy,

it gets harder to think clearly.

And I'll say it's not that you don't know it, it's that your brain is just trying to protect you.

And you can almost see their relief because we've already talked about how all our emotions have jobs so our kids know that our emotions have jobs.

This is just the job of our brain doing its thing.

Because now it's not, I'm bad at this,

it's oh,

my brain is just reacting.

So if test anxiety isn't just nerves,

what do our students actually need?

Well, they need tools.

Simple repeatable strategies that help them calm their body,

focus their mind,

build confidence.

So here are three strategies that you can teach tomorrow.

You ready?

1.

Name it to tame it.

Sure, you've heard this one before.

When students can name what they're feeling, it takes away some of the power.

Teach them to say, I feel nervous,

I'm worried I'll get this wrong.

Then normalize it.

That makes sense. This is important.

2.

Set up pre test routines.

Because routines create calm,

give students a simple plan.

Take a deep breath, read directions slowly.

Start with an easier question and my favorite, which I tell them to do all the time.

Before you even start your test,

stand up and we're all going to do the Superman pose.

Take a deep breath,

feel your confidence.

Let's get ready.

And then remind them you don't have to do the whole test. Just start with one question,

then three.

Set up some confidence anchors.

Give students something to say to themselves when they feel stuck.

Some examples I can try.

I've done hard things before.

I don't have to be perfect.

Have them pick one that feels right and practice it ahead of time.

I it's kind of sad, but all our tests, now our state testing is done on the computer,

I, I kind of hate it because when they had the little paper and pencil tests, I would make these cute little flags with confidence boosters.

They look like little pennants that I would tape onto their pencils. And now,

I mean, I could tape these little flags, I guess onto their computers. But it was super cute to see them writing with their, with their little flags.

But those little things,

those are things that go a long way.

But anyway, my friends have them choose this confidence anchor,

one that feels straight for them, and have them practice it ahead of time because in the moment, they,

your kids, they need something to hold onto.

And here are some easy activities that, that you can use right now.

If you're wondering how to teach this quickly,

try some color by code, coping skills activities or confidence statement practice.

These don't have to be long things. They could be something short.

We're actually doing two a little in a couple of my classrooms in the older classes,

a little in the morning.

The classrooms during their morning time,

their soft start time,

I left collaborative posters for our teachers to use with a little testing message, like, you're better than the test.

And so each kid is just, they're using their coping strategies to color, to calm. And they're just thinking of some calm things as they're coloring. And they're going to put together these posters for their classrooms.

They're super cute and hopefully they're nice. Visual reminder that they've got this. It's no big deal because after all, that's what we want for our kiddos.

Like I said,

activities. As a school counselor,

you don't have to do a full classroom lesson.

You can just give stuff to teachers and there's plenty of stuff out there and it doesn't have to be for very long. Even if you just go in five minutes in the morning to this classroom and then tomorrow you hit another one,

before long you're going to have them all covered.

So here's another thing.

Instead of asking,

are my kids ready for the test?

Try asking,

do they feel ready?

Because when our students feel prepared, supported, capable,

everything changes.

And just like that crack pot,

sometimes our students,

they aren't broken,

they're just growing.

And they just need someone to help them see it.

And if you're thinking, once again, I don't have time to create all of this.

Remember,

I've gotcha.

That's why I've created some of these things. I have some test prep stuff and I am going to leave and like that collaborative poster, I'm going to leave all the test prep things that I have links to that in the show notes.

And once again, don't forget, they're also if you're in perks, they're also all in perks. We've got you covered.

So my final thought,

test anxiety isn't just about the test.

It's about how students see themselves and when we can help them shift from I can't do this to I can try.

That's where the real growth happens.

You're doing amazing things.

Keep it up. And until next time, I hope you have a really great week.

Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and@counningessentials.org

be sure to hit follow or

subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it.

Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at counselingessentials.

Until next time.

Can't wait till we chat.

Bye for now.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Test Anxiety Isn’t Just Nerves—Here’s What Students Really Need

💡 What You’ll Learn

🧠 What’s Really Happening

🎨 Easy Activities to Support Students

✨ Key Takeaway

🎁 Resources Mentioned

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube