This week, the two classes I’m helping teach (Physics 10A and 10C) had whiteboard discussions about the momentum card sort we’d been working on earlier in the trimester, and Preethi allowed me to lead both of them. The first was after lunch on Wednesday, and the second the next day on Thursday. Both times I was extremely nervous and stressed for reasons I’ll dig deeper into in a moment, but first I want to talk about the how positive the experience was. First of all, despite my nervousness, I actually didn’t dislike anything about doing it. That nervousness is just how I react to responsibility, and so I got nervous when Preethi gave me the responsibility of leading the discussions. I had a really good time helping the students dig deeper into what they had learned through the card sort, and watching them come to realizations as I lead them down the right path with nothing more than (at times abstract) questions about what was on their boards was very fulfilling for me, as I felt that I was actually helping and having a tangibly positive impact.

Now, the nervousness. The main reason I was nervous was also the most predictable: I generally hate being in charge, let alone in charge of people I’m not particularly familiar with like the 10th graders. Being in front of them made me feel really awkward since I’m usually more of follower than a leader. I felt a lot of pressure to ask them the right questions, and I was afraid that if I didn’t do a good job I’d ruin their experience with the card sort, they’d hate me, and I would have to add one more item to the list of things I’ve failed at. Obviously, this is probably a huge overreaction and a pretty unreasonable fear. I readily recognize how ridiculous my anxiety is, but I can’t change it, only try to manage it. One of the ways I manage it is through experience, to make it more familiar and less scary. This worked here as well. During the discussion on Thursday, I was thinking a lot less about being in charge. While I was still nervous about it, it wasn’t making my stomach turn like it did the day before. However, there was a new source of nervousness, which was my distortion of expectations. It was the same scenario with the same goals, the same questions, and the same information, but because I had done it once before I got in my own head and convinced myself there were higher expectations since this time I’d already had experience. The final source of nervousness that I have been able to identify that is directly connected to these discussions and not just my panic disorder acting up was Zoom and my wifi. Throughout the week my Zoom had been freezing up for a few seconds at a time due to the internet connection being strained by me and my parents all using it at the same time throughout the day, and I was terrified that it’d happen during the discussions, and I’d miss what someone said, and get too self conscious about asking them to repeat themself that I’d just panic and not know what to do. Luckily, it didn’t happen, but the though of it was eating at me throughout both discussions and making me all the more nervous.

There are probably several other things I could link to my nervousness around this, such as being worried about something not going to plan, but I think these are the three factors directly related to this specific scenario, and not a normal symptom of my anxiety disorders. A final note is that I think the way I was tasked with guiding the students down certain thought progression will help me to better understand things I learn about in the future by using a similar process, but I’ll comment on that when it becomes clearly related to something I’ve learned.

I absolutely loved taking part in these discussions and I can’t wait for the rest of Senior Project!