Who Are My Learners?
History of school achievement, now interrupted
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at common characteristics I observe in many of my anxious learners. Last week I explained that the bulk of my learners are quite bright. This week, I’ll discuss another characteristic: a history of school achievement which has been somehow interrupted.
At nearly every initial conversation with a family, I hear something like, “It was all fine until the 8th/10th/12th grade, then suddenly he began to stall.”
Many learners who develop academic anxiety have above average IQ and undiagnosed or unaccommodated learning differences. Their strong intelligence and motivation to learn compensates for neurodivergent-related barriers until the complexity of the curriculum shifts beyond their ability to learn simply by showing up. In the US, those curricular shifts tend to occur at grade 8, 10, and 12AP/first year college.
When this occurs, learners have no idea why academics suddenly got so difficult. They’ve learned to depend on their brain’s ability to quite easily do schoolwork. Usually they identify as a high academic performer. So it makes sense that they start to internally panic, which presents as low motivation, missed assignments, or shutting down. It doesn't take long for a learner’s brain to identify schoolwork as an anxiety trigger, compounding the problem.
Understanding and honoring their learning style teaches people how to manage their individual barriers and experience success. In order to use the strategies, however, anxious learners need to learn to manage the panic now triggered by schoolwork. In extreme situations, it can be helpful for me to work in concert with an experienced clinician.
Learners often come to anxioustolearn.com after an academic crisis like a failed semester or school refusal. The tenacious vow to “just tough it out” has failed. Families just don’t know where to turn. By listening to the learner, I can help them figure out “how to drive their beautiful brain” and devise strategies to negotiate academics successfully. As they implement these strategies, my learners discover that they actually CAN do their work. Confidence builds fairly quickly thereafter.
Anxiety, of course, causes its own cognitive interference. (Who can do calculus while their brain thinks it needs to escape the saber-toothed tiger?) Giving anxious learners tools to reduce their panic and strategies to remove their learning barriers restores faith in themselves, letting them enjoy that fine intelligence we knew was there all along.