Welcome to “Think Again!”
Who are my anxious learners?
Working with anxious learners, I’ve observed some patterns and shared characteristics. It would be overgeneralizing to suggest that anxious learners share a “profile,” but I often see a combination of a few or all of these attributes:
Above average or high academic intelligence
History of school achievement, now interrupted
Learning differences stemming from (sometimes undiagnosed) neurodivergence and/or mental health
Slow processing speed
Family value placed on academic achievement and education
Significant talent in a non-academic area
It makes sense why a blend of these traits can create anxiety. After all, if you are told you are smart and your family expects good grades, it’s natural to panic if you run into learning roadblocks, especially if you don’t know how to solve them. School used to be easy and now it’s not. You excel in dance, so why is school suddenly a problem?
Over the next few weeks, I will look at these traits in greater depth to explain how it works. Today we’ll start with high academic intelligence. By this, I mean the ability to learn and perform well in school. While educators generally acknowledge that humans possess intelligence in several modalities, here I’m referring to what we used to know as IQ.
Above Average of High Academic Intelligence
Nearly all of my learners are quite bright; some are stunningly so. They know they can grasp complexities, understand nuanced concepts, and synthesize disparate information; they love to play with their intellect. AND at the same time, they experience neurodivergence-related obstacles unrelated to their ability to learn. How frustrating!
For years, their intelligence compensated for neurodivergent learning differences. Just showing up was enough to be academically successful. But at some point, the complexity of the curriculum outpaces the strength of natural intelligence. Without awareness of their learning differences or strategies to negotiate academics as a neurodivergent learner, my students conclude that there’s “something wrong with me.”
My learners’ anxiety makes sense: hunger to learn, desire to achieve, history of being “ a smart kid” - all crash into mysterious barriers they don’t understand. Self-doubt emerges:
“Why can’t I just. . .?”
“I used to be able to . .”
“The cello/baseball/ballet is so easy for me. Why is schoolwork so impossible?”
“There must be something wrong with me.”
Most of my learners come to me thinking that they are somehow “broken.” Much of my work is helping my learners understand how their brains work, recognize that they are not “broken,” and accept themselves as they are - a smart person who needs to use specific strategies to “do school without being miserable.”