Reducing Stress and Struggle for Students

This Week with Sara Fitts is all about reducing stress and struggle for students.  For more than 30 years I've been working with students in various capacities - as a math teacher, a high school principal, instructional coach - and business owner committed to reducing stress and struggle for students as well as for their parents.

First of all, I think we can all agree that life has its stress and struggle - and that being said, schools should not be places for undue stress and struggle.  Schools should be places for teaching and learning.  Schools should be places for growth and development.  Schools should be places where it is safe to practice new academic skills without fear of failure and added stress and struggle.  

Schools should not be all about the test scores.  Schools should not be only concerned with teaching to a test.  Schools definitely need to examine what is being taught and what is being learned; however, testing only for the sake of getting a particular score is not the answer that is needed in education today.  Schools today are often such stressful environments.  Not much can ever be learned in stressful situations.  No one can learn their best lessons - or teach their best lessons - when intimidation abounds.

And I strongly believe that rigor is an essential element in all curricula and in all classrooms.  Rigor is very much needed; however, I see the lack of rigor in schools and classrooms where the only driving force is test scores.  So here's my plan.......

Begin with the end in mind.  By this I mean know what the final expectation of the course is - and then build the curriculum around that end result.  After students are presented with the basics, and then master the concepts - bring on the rigor!  Students will rise to the challenge because they will not be so stressed with the "threat" of test score numbers.  They will only be achieving and rising to the next level of learning.  And they will do so without intimidation, without stress, and without struggle.  And I bet you money that the test scores will be better than ever!

This is my Simple Little Formula for educational success.  And with it comes reduced stress and struggle for all students.  And all students can succeed to even higher levels.  And rigor will return to the classrooms once again.  And test scores will be good!

Sara Fitts is an academic coach and educational consultant in Manassas, VA.  She owns SLF Consulting and works with students to reduce stress and struggle.  For more information, visit her website and to contact her, click here.