Middle School Teacher Received Multiple Emails From Students Asking To Get Out Of Their Presentations Due To Anxiety — 'It's A Life Skill That's Necessary'
He questioned what he should do to ensure that his students don't feel as anxious on the day of their presentations.
Monkey Business Images | Shutterstock A teacher found himself in a rather tricky situation after admitting that several of his students were panicking about an upcoming presentation.
Posting to the subreddit r/Teachers, the first-year educator revealed that many of his students suffer from anxiety, and it seems to be getting in the way of learning the valuable skill of public speaking.
He received multiple emails from students asking to get out of their presentations due to anxiety.
In his Reddit post, he explained that it's only the first week of his first year teaching 8th-grade ELA classes, and for a fun project idea, he assigned his students a presentation. He required his students to find cool adjectives that they'd use to describe themselves and decorate them on a piece of cardstock to put around the classroom.
Ground Picture | Shutterstock
As part of the assignment, each student was asked to present their findings one by one to the rest of their classmates, with a quick introduction of "Hi, this is me..." He admitted that it shouldn't take more than a minute for each student to present, and as presentations go, it wasn't extensive or intense in the slightest.
However, he was met with a bit of hesitancy from some of his students, who insisted that they shouldn't have to present at all due to their anxiety and fear of public speaking.
"I had several students email me the night before, almost begging me to let me skip it because of their social anxiety. One girl wrote in her weekly letter that she could not sleep on Wednesday due to panic," he continued.
He admitted that he's no stranger to having anxiety and can understand where his students are coming from.
As someone who struggled with general anxiety and was diagnosed at 15, he recalled feeling the way that his students do. He explained that he wasn't even able to hold a conversation until he was finally prescribed medication to get over that hump.
According to the CDC, 9.4% of children aged 3–17 years old were diagnosed with anxiety between 2016 and 2019, which is about 5.8 million children. This makes anxiety one of the most common mental health disorders in children, along with ADHD, depression, and behavior problems.
When it comes to public speaking, it is very common among the general population and students alike. Some estimates are that as many as 20-85% of people experience more or less anxiety when they need to speak in public.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock
As someone who struggles with social anxiety to this day and, as a student, felt panicked and pressured to give presentations, it is an actual hurdle that can be difficult to overcome.
Usually, at least in my case, it was the build-up to a presentation or public speaking event that caused my anxiety to flare up. Not knowing what to expect and running through a million different scenarios in my head of how I could mess up didn't make it better. But, once I started presenting, I felt fine, and when it was over, the relief was instant.
There are ways he can help his students overcome their fear of public speaking.
As a teacher, it can be difficult to address this anxiety among students because you want to push them out of their comfort zone, but at the same time, you don't want to cause them distress.
As much as his students might dislike public speaking, it is a huge part of being an adult. You may have to give presentations at work or speak in front of an audience for different events, depending on what field you go into.
It's something you simply can't avoid. As he pointed out in his Reddit post, public speaking is a "life skill that will always be necessary." The best way that he can make sure his students feel prepared is to go over some tools that they can use whenever they feel anxious about presentations.
He can stress the importance of practicing or even writing a little speech so that on the day of, they aren't fumbling with their words.
He can even have them all do deep-breathing exercises or a quick meditation before the presentations start to help them get over their nerves and anxiety. There are definitely specific tools that he can implement in the classroom to make presentations go smoother, and he can stress the importance of not allowing your social anxiety to dictate your life.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.