Sure enough, she wouldn’t talk to me.

OK, I thought, now what? I saw Amy eyeing a set of colored markers

I have on the floor in my home-office and I asked her if she liked to draw. She nodded. Rather than get into a tug-of-war over her not talking (of course, she would win), I said, “We don’t have to talk. You can draw if you’d like.” She started drawing and got very absorbed in an intricate picture of a group of lizards. When she was done I asked her if she would tell me something about it. All she said was, “It’s a family.”

In the second session she started drawing again, almost immediately. Again, lizards. The identical family as last time. They were in varying sizes and from the expressions on their faces (anger, fear, blankness) was obviously some story behind the picture. I asked Amy if she would tell me the story and she said, “In this family there is a father, a mother, a brother and a sister.”

Of course this corresponded directly to her own family configuration, and the story, as it wound out over several sessions, came clearer: the parent lizards didn’t think the little daughter lizard was as smart as the older brother lizard One day, as Amy was drawing I casually asked her, “So what’s the problem with math?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t understand it.” I asked her if she told anyone that and she shook her head, “No.”

Immediately a light shone for me on her whole situation: here was a child who didn’t understand the teacher but was afraid to say so for fear of that she’d be seen as not being smart. I asked her if this were so. Again, she nodded.

With Amy’s knowledge I spoke with her parents and teacher. I explained to them that it had to be safe for Amy to say, “I don’t understand this,” and that they needed to check in with her about it during or after class and when she was doing homework. I also trained Amy to say these simple words right away, “I don’t understand this.” When she saw it was safe to say it, she did.

Our work together ended several weeks before the math qualifying test and the interview. Her mother called one day and said, “Amy passed the math test and couldn’t’ stop talking at the interview.” She was accepted into the school.

What can we take away from Amy’s story? First, it’s all right not to know, and second it’s necessary to speak up, to confide it to someone who will be accepting. There’s an ancient expression, “He who thinks he knows not, knows; he who thinks he knows, knows not.” While this has deep spiritual implication, the bottom line is that not knowing is a natural, expected and an excellent place to start, provided you have a safe environment to express it.

When you are studying or preparing for a test and you don’t know something, recognize that. Rather than beat yourself up about it, say it—to yourself, and to someone who can help you. This is the first step on a path to building your confidence: it’s OK to not know.

Cheating is not an option

The New York Times ran a story recently titled: Pressed to Show Progress, Educators Tamper with Test Scores. The article is about teachers supplying their students with test questions and in some cases, changing the answer sheets, all to raise their students’ scores.

Why would a teacher, a role model for his or her students, take such a drastic action?

The answer is clear:  “test stress.”

Testing in America– and in many countries around the world–is so stressful that teachers “feel their schools’ reputation, their livelihoods, their psychic meaning in life is at stake,” says Robert Schaeffer, of FairTest.

Something is  badly out of balance if teachers are cheating.  Testing should be formative– students should learn from the process– not just about the subject matter, but about themselves.  If they are learning that cheating is an option,  that is unacceptable– not just for the teachers doing it, but for our society that perpetrates such high-stakes, over-the-top stress to cause this to happen.

This should be a wake-up call to President Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to  take a good hard look at what testing is really doing to students, teachers and parents.  Before we get even further into this mess with more and more testing,  let’s ask the question: are we really measuring student achievement with all our tests or are we just giving people opportunities to find any means possible to get the highest scores?

Sadly, I believe it’s the latter.

Again, testing should be transformative. Students can learn how to be calm,. confident and focused when they take a test, and these skills will transfer over to any challenge in life.  Cheating does none of that and worse.

Things didn’t work out the way he planned.  Uncharacteristically, his test performance was sub-par. He barely got through.  This was a smart,

well-prepared individual, and it was hard for everyone, the student included, to understand what went wrong.

“Here’s where the 3 legged stool came in,” the teacher said. “The student was certainly confident– he was experienced with the procedure.  That leg was strong. But although he tried to keep a good ‘game face’ and appear like everything was all right, he was quite upset about the family situation. In other words, he wasn’t calm.  But the really wobbly leg was his focus–he was thinking about the people in his family, the lost loved one, and having to catch a plane to get to the funeral. His attention wasn’t on the test.”

The teacher had performed a great service to the student by framing the test experience in this way. He elevated the discussion to a much more meaningful level than just a grade.  The teacher helped the student to look at his own experience in a way that had meaning, and implications well beyond his training. Through the lens of the 3-legged stool the teacher guided the student to understand what’s truly going on. His ability to focus was severely weakened in this particular circumstance.

In the course of our daily lives, in and out of work, we are all faced with challenges big and small. Sometimes these challenges are in the work itself, sometimes they are simply part of life. The 3 legged stool is a secure platform on which we can handle any of these challenges.  Calm, confident and focused.

Ultimately, tests are not just about learning the right “stuff,” they are about continuing to grow and live  to our full potential.

The calm, confident and focused teacher

As the health care debate nears some resolution (at least for the time being), the legislative agenda is already setting its compass to point towards education. A lead article in the New York Times titled “Obama Calls for a Major Change in the Education Law,” the President and his Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan are calling for a re-visioning of No Child Left Behind.

(see referenced article link to ‘Major Change in Education Law’)

One of the key features of the new policy is the focus on teachers and how they teach.

Quoting the article: The administration’s proposals would also rework the law’s teacher-quality provisions by requiring states to develop evaluation procedures to distinguish effective instructors, partly based on whether their students are learning.

I read this to mean: teachers are going to be tested. Big time. I don’t mean…

that they’re going to be sat down with test booklets and scantrons, but their very work itself will be under the microscope and evaluated. The test for teachers is going to focus on two questions: how are teachers going their jobs, and  effective are they?  Certainly, student performance will be an indicator of teacher success, but there will be a great deal more attention to how teachers are instrumental in making that success happen… or not.   This doesn’t have to do only with “teaching to the test,” but the way teachers carry out their jobs.  Do they instill confidence in their students? Do they motivate them staying focused so they can succeed? Do they show them how to be calm and centered in the face of ongoing challenges?

It’s the same three legged stool: calm, confident and focused. It’s the same platform for successful performance, whether you are a teacher, a student, a politician, an opera singer, or a pro athlete.

When a teacher is calm, confident and focused he or she radiates the qualities that every student needs to succeed.

Everyone wants to succeed. Everyone can learn to be calm, confident and focused. Our teachers light that light inside of each of us.

The Workbook as textbook for basic skills course

Recently I learned that Mendocino College is offering a course titled Test Anxiety and Test Taking Skills.  The course description reads:  “The mental, emotional, and physical aspects of test anxiety. General life stressors, school related stressors and techniques for eliminating or reducing anxiety. Studying for a test and test-taking strategies will be emphasized.”

A course with this title and purpose was so intriguing to me that….

I contacted the instructor, Debra Tannenbaum, and she and I had a most lively conversation. Turns out that this course is under the “basic skills” initiative: to give students the foundational tools they need to succeed.  Ms. Tannenbaum, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, inherited the course and the text from a former instructor. She discovered the text was out-of-print. A self-described “internet person,” Ms Tannenbaum went web-hunting and was led to my book, which she ordered. She liked what she read and it became the text for the class!  I’ve written to the class to send me their questions and stories about test taking and test anxiety.  I am very honored by Ms. Tannenbaum’s choice. And I am very happy that colleges are providing the real skills that students need to succeed– not only on tests but in life.

Alan Sitomer: one passionate teacher

I have been reading, with great interest, the postings of a California teacher, Alan Lawrence Sitomer.  His committed work and passionate voice first came to my attention last week with a blog post titled, “Raise your test scores, that’s all they want.”

I highly recommend that every teacher start tuning in to Mr. Sitomer’s blog. They will find mirrored there the many questions, frustrations, joys, challenges, and tests that every thinking, heart-centered teacher has.

In stepping up to the inevitability of standardized tests and the unfortunate (many would say unfair) importance placed on them in our society, Mr. Sitomer, states, “and so, like every other teacher in my school, I have to play they way they want me to play or else they will remove me from my position and bring in other teachers to do as they wish.” Accepting that sad-but-too-true reality, he goes on to state, with firy determination that he is going to “crack” the test. “Standardized tests by their very nature are ‘crackable’ and if you put me in front of the guillotine, well… I have a job I’d like to keep.”

One of the vital, most affirming aspects of Mr. Sitomer’s  commitment is that he is stepping up to the plate and tackling a real challenge of his job. Just like the kids don’t like to take those tests, teachers don’t like spending valuable time and energy (theirs and their students) in hours and hours of test prep. Yet they are part of our reality and we have to deal with them.

“Deal with them” can mean a few things– familiarizing students with test content, test questions and strategies for answering. All important, certainly in the test prep process.  The part that is missing– and that I, just as passionately ask that every teacher, principal, and school superintendent — is that there are foundational skills for approaching tests.  And these skills are not about test content, but about the person taking (or teaching about) the test. They are the skills for being calm, confident and focused.  The same skills that we need when we face life’s tests.  I don’t know about you– but I’m facing tests on a daily basis, and I’ve had my Ph.D for 30 years!

Let’s face it– as Mr. Sitomer is so bravely doing– life is filled with many things we don’t like to do but we have to do. We don’t choose many of the tests we have in life, but we can choose how we approach them.

I applaud Alan Sitomer– no wonder he was the 2007 California Teacher of the Year.  How fortunate his students are, as are we, his fellow teachers.

Stay tuned to:   http://www.alanlawrencesitomer.com/category/blog/

http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=11415560

Despite low test scores, some schools in Maryland have taken a different approach to making sure students learn. The teacher are making the difference. Through their tireless hard work they try a range of approaches, including games, and– noteworthy to me, “When students make a mistake their teaches tell them not to be embarrassed and work it through with either a partner or teacher.

I’ve written chapter in my book specifically for teachers. They need support for their great service. Teaching is arguably one of the most challenging professions in the world. It demands on-going attention to an ever-changing flux of variables – from an individual student’s cognitive and emotional growth to dynamic group factors, from highly charged cultural and political issues to rapid advances in technology and information processing. Keeping a finger on the pulse of all this is a full-time, virtually non-stop, excruciatingly difficult job, and yet that’s what teachers are expected to do. The dedicated teacher has to be wide-awake and ready to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving system.

I started writing this book for students. It is meant to equip students – high school, college, graduate – with the nine tools for being calm, confident and focused on any test – the qualities necessary for success in performance situations. Teachers started using the model too and reporting excellent results. Teachers who are calm, confident and focused are less stressed and more successful in their role in the classroom. They are also more exemplary as role models for their students.

By the way, I am giving a workshop 4-5 pm today at UCSF Mission Bay Campus. Free. Open to public. Both students and teachers are welcome. Come say hello and bring your questions. See post directly below (Nov 2) for details.

If you are stressed out over tests, you have come to the right place. If you want higher test scores, you will find the path here. If you’re a student, a teacher, a school administrator or an educational policy maker, and want to improve test results, read on. THE WORKBOOK FOR TEST SUCCESS: How to Be Calm, Confident and Focused on Any Test is for you.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

We are thrilled to be online and sharing the THE WORKBOOK FOR TEST SUCCESS. Advance copies of the book are already selling quickly! Generous, thoughtful sponsors are providing copies, free, to University of the Pacific in San Francisco; the Young Musicians Program at Cal Berkeley; and to Etgar, a summer traveling  program for teens. Corporate and philanthropic sponsors are  gifting the book to schools, parent teacher associations and to youth development groups. Two wonderful teen summer interns are employed (under the stimulus package!) to work on the book launch. Great things to come! And please be patient with us.  With all the interest in the book we want to get this blog/website up and running.

Stay tuned!