End Of School Year Anxiety

[Bunny]

I am trying to be very patient with difficult child right now, but he was just really mean this morning. I think it's the end of the year exam stress peeking through. He has his first of two Regents exams tomorrow (math) and the second one is on Friday (earth science). Yesterday was part of his Italian final and next week is ELA and history.

I think that the teachers in the Regents classes have done a good job prepping them for the tests, but there is alot of pressure on the kids to do well. Obviously, the better the kids do, the better it looks for the teachers. difficult child got an 87 on a practice math exam and his teacher told him it wasn't good enough. She wants them all to get at least an 88 because that shows that they've "mastered" the class. Yeah. Good luck with that one!

While I'm not really looking forward to the summer, I can't wait until the tests are over.

 

[InsaneCdn]

difficult child got an 87 on a practice math exam and his teacher told him it wasn't good enough. She wants them all to get at least an 88

Read more: http://www.conductdisorders.com/forum/f6/end-school-year-anxiety-54115/#ixzz2Vuvj2VtX

He got one of Those teachers! ugh.
Sorry. That kind of comment from a teacher REALLY ramps up exam stress fast, and if the kid has anxiety problems in the first place... it's even worse.

Cut him some slack at home - we have to do the same. For us, it's actually easier this year because K2 is also facing exam stress, and they both need some slack and some "space"... another week or so, and the pressure is off.

 

[Bunny]

I told him that I don't care what his teacher told him he had to get on the exam. You do the best you can and that is all I can ask either of my boys to do. difficult child is very hard on himself when it comes to grades. He's already told me that if he gets below an 80 he wants to take the test again because he will not be happy with a grade in the 70's. I told him worry about this test and once we get the grade back we'll worry about whether or not the test needs to be taken again.

He's harder on himself that I could ever be!

 

[Liahona]

Would it help to point out the reason the teacher said that is so she wants to look good? That there isn't much difference between 88 and 87.

 

[Bunny]

I don't think so, Liahona. In his mind, whatever a teacher says is set in stone, so no amount of me explaining it to him will change his thought process. After all, I'm just a mom. What could I possibly know?

Anyway, he for his test a little while ago. The teachers wanted them all to come in at regular time (usually they just go in for the test, so if the test doesn't start until 12:30 he would go in late), so the could have a last review session. The teachers were going to get pizza and munchkins if the kids wanted to eat that ($3, please) of they could bring a bag lunch. He seemed pretty calm, at least by my difficult child standards.

We'll see what he says when he comes home.

 

[svengandhi]

Bunny -

85 is mastery on the Regents. My son refused to do accelerated math and is only doing earth science. I want him to be studying but he's been asleep since 5 PM. He'll wake up at 9 and want to study with me and I have work in the morning.

He's already had his history final and his English teacher didn't give a final, she gave them a portfolio assignment. The Latin state test is Monday, then there's HS orientation.

Even my son, who isn't a difficult child, is stressing out over this end of year stuff. I'm a little nervous about next year because he's doing Honors Bio and he has moderately severe dyslexia and visual issues.

Your son sounds like a very smart young man and I'm sure he'll do fine. The Regents is geared to the average student. I'll tell you a true story. My oldest son also declined accelerated math (difficult child was the only one of my kids who took it). We would get calls and notes that he was sleeping in algebra class. The teacher used to call on him to wake him up and then get annoyed when he knew the answer. Came Regents time and the teacher called to tell me how to sign him up for summer school because he wasn't studying or doing review packets and he was going to fail. Two days after the test, I called to sign him up and I was told he couldn't go because he scored 85 on the regents and it was mastery level, blah, blah, blah... I was actually a little disappointed because I thought he'd learn a lesson if he had to go to summer school. Last year, difficult child failed senior english and didn't graduate - he earned a 740 on the verbal SAT and a perfect score on ACT reading, so his skills are not in doubt. He had to go to summer school but since he got a 65 on the regents, he refused to take it over. He still got his diploma with honors because his other scores were almost perfect. This year, I'm pretty sure easy child failed the English Regents. He actually admitted it was hard and maybe he should have studied. He asked if they'd let him average that score with his US History, which he will ace.

I hope that you have less agita with the Regents than I have...