One of the greatest barriers to communicating and learning—for all of us—is anxiety. Anxiety is a state of apprehension, uncertainty, and fear resulting from the anticipation of a realistic or fantasized threatening event or situation, often impairing physical and psychological functioning. Individuals with too much anxiety simply cannot afford to stay engaged and interactive, which means they cannot move up the developmental ladder in any consistent way—in short, they cannot learn. This definition captures the experience of my son Graham, who was diagnosed with autism at three. It also fits many of my students at The Community School in Decatur, Georgia.
The Community School works with a small group of teenagers, all on the autistic spectrum. On a daily basis, I see my students struggle with anxiety. As an example, I remember an encounter with a student at 10:03 a.m. one day, when I told him it was time to go to class. He said, “Where is everyone?” I said I thought they had already gone down to the classroom. “This school is so disorganized!” he says. “What do you mean?” I ask. “Nobody told me that class had started.”
To me, this student has had a moment of anxiety, but it’s more than just a momentary feeling because this kind of reaction is always close to the surface for him. In other words, any of a number of events could trigger this kind of reaction. I don’t mean to single this student out. Every single one of my students has anxiety almost every day. What is so interesting, however, is how different the manifestations of that condition can be. Some students begin asking constant questions; some interrupt constantly; some retreat or run away; and some get rude or provoking. Everyone (adults included) has their own special way of showing when they’re anxious, from biting fingernails to getting headaches to talking a lot. What makes the experience of helping students with their anxiety so interesting and challenging is that many times, they don’t even know how they’re feeling, so they have no foundation for trying to manage the feeling.
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