Test Anxiety

This week completely flew by! Today is Friday and I feel like yesterday was just Monday.

I had a midterm for my Mexican American history class yesterday and I had so much studying to do that I barely remember the days of the week that I made it through. The kids were left to their own devices a whole lot more then normal. I am so glad that we have the computer with some great games like I Spy and of course Diner Dash. What? Diner Dash is to educational! Just think of all those motor skills they are using when they play it! Plus as the levels advance they have to really use critical thinking to make sure they can meet their goal.  You see everything we do is educational, you just have to find the learning in it.

I remembered this week that I actually have SEVERE test anxiety. It has been so long since I was in school that I had forgotten that fact. Being that I am a life learner, and an unschooling mom we do not focus on an actual test to prove you have knowledge. Unfortuantly for me colleges do require you to take tests to prove that you know what you are supposed to know. Some of you might wonder why I say my test anxiety is severe? If you go to the link I provided you will see that there is 10 questions they ask, if you answer yes to 4 of them you have test anxiety... I can answer yes to 9 of the 10. I am still learning how to deal with this. It is frustrating to do so well on homework (100% on all homework thus far) and to get such low grades because of test anxiety. For example yesterday I had a make up test in my health class. In this health class I get 100% on all my homework, I know the material when we are just discussing it in our discussion groups online, then I take the test yesterday and its a possible 50 point test, I got 38.5 out of 50. Now because it was a make up test I am not beating myself up to bad over it, I mean after all I could have gotten a 0 for that test. That does not change the fact that I obviously know the material and my brain freaks me out so bad that when I take the test to PROVE I know it I simply can not recall much of the information or correctly answer the questions asked.

I believe that I may start working with my older children especially on test anxiety study skills as there will likely come a point in life when they will have to take a test or two. It is inevitable and unfortunate that many people believe that a test is the only way to prove that you know something. I could talk to you for ten minutes and you would discover that I know the material. Put me in a room at a desk with a piece of paper and a pen/pencil and suddenly my brain panics, I know nothing!

Yesterday I was grateful for my yoga because it reminded me to breathe deep when I was feeling the worst stress, and I remembered to stretch out those muscles in my neck and shoulders where my stress builds up and knots. Of course it didn't completely solve the problem and today my shoulder is still knotted horribly but I think its better then it could have been.

Do any of you have Test Anxiety? How did you deal with it?

Today as my reward my dad is taking me to see Secretariat~ The greatest triple crown winner ever! Tomorrow, or maybe even later today look for a review of the movie. :) until then have a great day.