Have you noticed an increase of both diagnosed and un-diagnosed student anxiety over the last few years? I sure have!
The student anxiety I’m seeing these past few years is more than the anxiety I saw in students in my first twenty years of being a first grade teacher. Each student’s story is their own and particular to them, but I will say that I just can’t help but think that increased testing and pace of life at school and home play a role in all of this student anxiety.
Anywhooo, in an effort to significantly decrease student anxiety in my new group of first graders, I am making a deliberate and concerted effort to keep things calm and peaceful in my classroom and started the first days of school centered on four statements with my students.
So, on the first day of school, amidst teaching a bunch of the most important procedures and routines (bathroom, cafeteria, where to locate important items in the classroom, etc), I spent much of our day around these core statements and this means we took it calmly and slowly…which helps keep student anxiety at bay.
You might be asking yourself, “Why are there only four statements? How did that last the entire day? Did it really reduce student anxiety that much? How did it go?” Here’s how it went down…
It might be helpful for you to know that I had intentionally placed kids at tables with friends from their class last year – this was a huge help for many when they arrived for Meet & Greet the night before. Students that are new to our school were spread out across the tables and I made a point of introducing the new student to the kids at their table very early in the day.
We started our first day with JUST the first statement “It’s okay to not know,” but had the students helped me compose it, Shared Writing style. I introduced myself, of course, and then talked about how I was both totally excited and nervous about starting the new school year. That starting a new school year makes me feel big feelings, that some of those feelings are almost opposites, like excited and afraid. Normalizing adult anxiety helped reduce student anxiety. That our feelings are our feelings and we have choices in how we handle them.
I told them about these things that gave me anxiety:
- I wasn’t sure what my new students would be like,
- we have new math curriculum (Bridges) that I haven’t taught before,
- I wouldn’t be getting to spend as much time with my family as I did over the summer,
Then I shared the statement and asked for their help in writing it on the whiteboard easel.
I picked the statement, but they eagerly helped me remember to start with an upper case letter, put spaces between my words, spell sight words, and end with a period. I reminded them, “See – you already know a lot! There will be things about first grade that you know already and there will be things you don’t know and no matter what, it’s okay! It’s okay to not know.” You could see the student anxiety diminish.
Then we practiced taking some deep breaths, because sometimes when a person doesn’t know something, they forget to breathe and they don’t even realize it. Breathing is always important, especially so when we are worried and stressed. So we practiced some more breathing.
(You might be wondering when effort and taking action when stuck and giving your best try will enter the picture…don’t worry…it WILL…for day 3. For these first days, I just want my students to start our KNOWING that there will be things they don’t know and that IT IS OKAY.)
Then, we carried about the day, learning about where important items like tissue, pencils, recycling/garbage baskets, band aids and such are kept. I answered some questions from the students about those kinds of things. Knowing answers to these “housekeeping” things decrease student anxiety because they know the answers to some of their questions and are being empowered to solve their own problems.
Then we started the launch into the next statement, “We are kind,” by first reading, Chrysanthemum.
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We will use this book as a touchstone book for retelling, kindness, vocabulary, character change, dramatizing characters, etc, throughout the school year, but for this first reading we focused on kindness and how when someone says or does unkind things, it hurts feelings. When feelings are hurt, student anxiety increases.
Then, again, Shared Writing style, the students helped me remember to start with an upper case letter, put spaces between words, spell sight words, and end with a period. Telling them that these are all skills they will get better at across the year just by showing up at school and being a learner puts student anxiety on the backburner.
Which means, not only are we kind to others, we are kind to OURSELVES! When something feels hard, we have to make sure to remind ourselves that, “It is okay to not know.” That throwing a pencil down or crumpling a paper because you feel like you can’t spell a word right are NOT being kind to yourself. (I’m foreshadowing here my day 2 addition to “It’s okay to not know.” So bear with me and keep reading.) When student anxiety is increased, the student is not as likely to be kind to themselves.
By the way, this important work also helps lay a foundation for my SEL “Let’s Be Kind” mini-unit of projectables, printables and original poems to build Social Emotional Learning.
After that segment of the morning, we learned about and practiced the recess and cafeteria routines and procedures, followed by heading out to recess. It was the calmest I have ever felt on day one of school.
Since our school has a new routine from last year to go from recess to lunch, we had stuff to sink our teeth into about what felt confusing and made them worry. So after lunch I took questions and we discussed how to handle those situations – all which help reduce student anxiety for the next recess and lunch because they learned what to do and it felt manageable.
Which led to core statement #3…”We are helpful.” Which I wrote again, Shared Writing style. As you know, kids are different. Some take things in stride more easily than others. Some listen very closely and can handle changes without a problem. Some feel worried and internalize it without seeking help, then get stuck and frustrated and break down or shut down. When student anxiety is high, problem solving is hard!
So, we talked about how it’s kind to be helpful to others. Specifically to our recess/lunch routine, when you know what to do, you can look for others who look worried and confused and offer your help. You might say something like, “What can I do to help you?” or “Let me show you where to go.”
Then we brainstormed ways we can be helpful around our classroom. Locating items, remembering the direction about what to work on when we’re done, pushing chairs in, noticing when someone looks like they need help, following the steps of our morning routine, etc. All of these bits of knowledge reduce student anxiety.
Now that there were three statements, we read and reread them Shared Reading style.
Then we practiced our line up procedures again and headed to Music class. Upon returning, we added Core Statement #4.
At the end of the day I even had energy to take a picture of our chart and email it to the parents to help the, “What did you do today?” discussion at home. I also shared with them that we would add this to it the next day…
So, do I have data to show that this helped reduce student anxiety? I do have data of the qualitative, not quantitative, kind. Multiple parents of my students with diagnosed anxiety emailed me to say thank you for such a calm start to the year….that their child(ren) had been very nervous and full of tears about going to school the first day, yet felt great about going back the next day, saying, “I can do this! It’s okay to not know stuff.”
Now THAT is data I can carry in my heart.
Readers, you are FULL of awesomeness and I would love to hear what YOU do to help reduce student anxiety in the comments.
