The Daily Riff - BE SMARTER. ABOUT EDUCATION.

I actually wanted to read the book, Choke, "What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To," as it related to tennis champion Novak Djokovic's dramatic rise and wins over long-time #1 and #2, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal.  Prior to his stellar 2011 streak, Djokovic was known to choke on big points where it mattered most.  So what changed?
  
What I didn't expect was how much of this book was about overcoming test-taking anxiety and how to perform better on tests.  I thought how crazy is it that we dedicate so much energy, time and money related to better performance on high-stakes standardized tests but that is a present reality in our education system.  While tests can be a valuable assessment and learning tool, especially when they are formative and when they provide immediate feedback, too often we conflate test outcomes with total "learning," especially if used as the sole summative evaluation tool. Tennis is something one chooses to do and by its very nature will include competition.  Learning doesn't need competition to happen.   But let's get back to choking, according to this book:

Choking under pressure is poor performance in response to the perceived stress of a situation.  Choking is not simply poor performance, however.  Choking is sub-optimal performance.  It's when you - or an individual athlete, actor, musician, or student - perform worse than expected given what you are capable of doing, and worse than what you have done in the past.  This less-than-optimal performance doesn't merely reflect a random fluctuation in skill level - we all have performance ups and downs.  This choke occurs in response to a highly stressful situation.

I played tournament tennis and choked on certain points yet continued to work on strategies and techniques to overcome the choking that can come with nerves.  Tennis players talk about this often.  Being loose or being in the zone usually meant not overthinking, not making careless mistakes, and somehow flying above the anxiety wire.  We all have our tricks and ways to overcome nerves, or like Rafa Nadal, using one's nerves to perform better.  Having rituals. Even singing songs in one's head during a point.  Breathing properly.  

Yet how does choking relate to education other than test scores?  Poor performance relates to a snow-ball effect and could entail being "pegged" at a young age.

Performing poorly in pressure-filled testing situations can also lower people's confidence in their ability to succeed and their willingness to venture further in particular areas.  A girl who bombs a math test may decide that girls really can't do math and thus choose a path through her schooling that limits her exposure to this subject.  It's easy to see how a recursive cycle could emerge here.   Poor math test performance leads to avoidance of math classes, which in turn means knowing less math, poorer test performance, and so on.

What to do?  Author Sian Bellock offers "Tips to Ensure Success Under Stress" such as reaffirming your self-worth, mapping out your complexities, write about your worries, meditate away your worries, pausing your choke, and several others.  One that caught my eye, in particular, since it is the topic of many conversations educators and parents have about test-prep: