麻豆传媒入口

On a spring afternoon in the 1990s, I happened upon one of my professors in a campus restroom. The renowned metaphysical sci-fi author caught me eyeing his hands, which trembled as he lathered them with liquid soap. 鈥淚 get the shakes before every class starts,鈥� he explained. 鈥淓very class for 30 years.鈥�

The Effects of Stage Fright on Teachers

I鈥檝e encountered many K鈥�12 instructors and preservice teachers since then who share my professor鈥檚 performance anxiety, a condition that causes them to mumble or forget critical concepts. Recent research on preservice teachers in China notes that teacher anxiety:

• Negatively impacts effectiveness
• Causes preservice teachers to seek alternative careers
• Reduces teachers鈥� warmth and verbal support of students
• Increases dogmatism as a coping strategy (teachers may also become overly strict or lenient)
• Results in teacher cynicism towards students

Negative coping mechanisms, like over- or under-eating and drug dependency, may also result.

Anxiety intensifies when administrators or university supervisors are present in the room. On top of being evaluated, you have to negotiate role ambiguity: Is your audience the students or the evaluators? At the very least, the experience is unpleasant; at its worst, it鈥檚 terrifying. I鈥檝e been there.

What Causes Stage Fright?

Baked into our brains is the fight-or-flight response to perceived threats. When confronted by something scary, the body automatically shuts down nonessential functions, like digestion, and amps up blood flow, muscle tension, and perspiration to prime you to crush the danger or race to safety. Mary Fensholt, author of The Francis Effect: The Real Reason You Hate Public Speaking and How to Get Over It, believes that fear of public speaking is related to the ancient fear of being eaten. Thirty-five thousand years ago in sub-Saharan Africa, a couple dozen eyes staring your way meant that it was lunchtime for a pack of predators. Here鈥檚 a trick to reverse that bio-evolutionary reaction while teaching: Imagine the students are baby bunnies鈥攜our prey.

9 Tips for Overcoming Classroom Stage Fright

You already know that practicing presentations will relax you, as will arriving early to organize the setting and troubleshoot any technologies that will be used. Here are nine other tips you might not have tried:

1. Move, laugh, and breathe. Before class, release nervous energy by jumping up and down 15 times in the bathroom. It will make you laugh. Shake your limbs to release nervous tension. Breathe slowly and deeply from the belly with your hands on the back of your hips.
2. 鈥淧ower pose鈥� for two minutes. After leaping up 72 stairs in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the film Rocky, Sly Stallone raises his fists in what Harvard professor Amy Cuddy calls the . As explains: 鈥淐uddy鈥檚 research... has shown that adopting the body language associated with dominance for just 120 seconds is enough to create a 20 percent increase in testosterone and a 25 percent decrease in the stress hormone cortisol. In other words, adopting these postures makes a person feel more powerful.鈥�
3. Deposit Easter eggs into your curriculum. Dreading students鈥� negative response to a lesson that is conceptually confusing? Plant some surprises in the lesson for you and the class to look forward to: a slide featuring Ryan Gosling, popcorn, an , a , a Bob Dylan break, or a review game. Playfulness is confidence building and contagious.
4. Start the class off with a ritual. The first couple minutes of a new class can be the most intimidating. I begin all my classes with 60 seconds of good news. Students report birthdays, new cars, successful surgeries, or relatives returning from Afghanistan. Besides marinating everyone in warm connections, the spotlight is on students, not you.
5. Reinforce content. Bring ancillary materials: posters, handouts, advance organizers, or a PowerPoint presentation. Don鈥檛 try to be as verbally gifted as Noam Chomsky鈥攜our materials will convey needed content.
6. Don鈥檛 cede your center. Avoid interpreting blank student faces as uninterested or angry (see 鈥溾��).
7. Commit to an emotion. Right before class begins, . When class starts, you鈥檒l feel more relaxed and animated.
8. Count chairs. will help keep your adrenaline more regulated.
9. It鈥檚 not about you. Remember to concentrate on students learning instead of you performing perfectly.

Lastly, find inspiration in Eleanor Roosevelt鈥檚 words: 鈥淵ou can gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 鈥業 lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.鈥�... You must do the thing you cannot do.鈥�