One Simple Trick to Ease Teaching Anxiety
I know the moment well: a buzzing classroom full of students right after lunch thinking of friends and heading home. As the teacher, I’m quieting the group and getting ready to start the day’s lesson which is supposed to be projected across my screen courtesy of the cable running from my laptop to my projector. Except the cord doesn’t fit into the plug like it should and, as I fight with it by flipping it upside down, I start to lose the class. Being a group of adolescents, they seize any opportunity to fall out of their chairs, make a crude joke, or zone out to Lala land. Unfortunately for me, the flipping of my connector cord STILL didn’t let the connection slip in easily so I rotate it again back to its original orientation and low and behold, it pops into place!
Teaching through Anxiety
This flippy floppy scenario happened one too many times in my junior high school teaching days. The time wasted as truly minimal, but the spikes in my anxiety were notable. I know you’re thinking, “Caroline, why not just leave the cables plugged in so you don’t have to mess with it?” Great question and thanks so much for asking. You see, I’m a special education teacher who is only issued one computer: a laptop. This old clunky guy goes with me to all my meetings and all my classes. Since I’m on the go a lot, it doesn’t have the luxury of staying on it’s nice little spot on top of my desk.
Stickers: A Teacher’s Best Friend
After about a school year and a half of playing the flippy cable game with myself while my students were taking advantage of their teacher’s distraction, I’d had it. I solved the problem like I solve most of my teaching problems: using visuals. I needed a cue showing me which way was up so I wasn’t questioning myself and could connect faster. So I went to my sticker drawer, pulled out a sheet of small stickers and firmly placed one on the connector cable. And guess what? It worked so well that I added another sticker to the cable that connects my second monitor. So, how long has the sticker stayed on the cable connectors? Three years and going strong!
End the Madness!
People, my classroom anxiety plummeted because of a couple of free stickers. This was one of the best visuals I’ve used for myself in teaching ever. I loved it so much that I applied a similar technique to my flashdrives. I don’t use a thumb drive as much as I did since Google drive has come onto the scene, but sometimes it’s still necessary. My drive lives on my keychain so I never forget it when I’m heading to school. Instead of a sticker, I marked the top of the removable drive with a permanent marker. Nail polish would work for this too, but the marker was just handier for me to grab. Same as when I’m fussing with the cables at school, I know that I have the direction right and that the little drive will slip right in when I wiggle it just right.
Visuals Will Set You Free
So, go grab some stickers or a marker and lower your school anxiety! What 10 second fixes for the classroom do you use?
