Rethinking anxiety is a topic I had hoped to explore with you all during collaboration time this year, but as so often happens, we haven’t quite had the space for it yet. Still, it’s been on my mind, and I wanted to put it out there as something to think about together.
Anxiety and stress show up in our classrooms every day — expressed in loud explosions and quiet withdrawal. It hums in the background of virtually every move we make at Venture. We usually carry an unspoken assumption about what stress and anxiety mean: that they’re signs of overload, or something that needs to be reduced, managed, or fixed as quickly as possible.
I’ve been thinking about a different question: not how do we reduce anxiety, but what story are we telling about it?
Jonathan Sacks writes, “Narrative is how we construct meaning out of the flow of events… We are, in large measure, the story we tell about ourselves, which means that we are always a work in progress.” That idea has stuck with me. If that’s true, then the meaning our students make of stress and anxiety may matter even more than the feelings themselves.
There’s actually research around this. Psychologists Crum, Salovey, and Achor developed something called the Stress Mindset Measure, which looks at whether people see stress as debilitating or enhancing. What’s interesting is that people can experience the same stressors but respond very differently depending on the story they tell themselves — whether stress means “this is harming me” or “this is challenging me in a way that could grow me.”
How does this relate to our work with students?
What are the stories they tell themselves about anxiety?
Does “feeling stressed” mean “I can’t handle this”?
Or could it sometimes mean “this matters” or “I’m stretching”?
And then a further question for us:
What would happen if we subtly changed our own narrative and began speaking differently about stress and anxiety? Could we, over time, model a relationship with these experiences that might actually help shift students’ experiences?
I don’t have answers here — just curiosity. But I keep coming back to the idea that maybe anxiety isn’t always a sign that something is wrong. Maybe sometimes it’s a sign that something is forming, emerging, or being attempted for the first time.
And maybe part of our work, individually or collectively, is simply becoming more aware of our narratives around stress and anxiety — and considering whether our story is helping students grow, or whether it is contributing to a view that undermines them.
Not to fix anything.
Not to rush to solutions.
Just to notice the story… and hold open the possibility of a different one.
If you want to dig into this topic a little more, here's a place to begin: Stress Mindset Measure
IPLP - we will do a midterm check in tomorrow during our collaboration time. Please bring a Chromebook. We will work with departments to answer the questions in the Evaluations link
Week of January 26
Bus Duty: Blank and Knight
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Wednesday: Celebration Assembly
Thursday:
Friday: Non work day
Week of February 2
Bus Duty: Tacke and Cooley
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Friday: Non Work Day
Week of February 9
Bus Duty: Hamilton and Hook
Monday: Caryn out 😱😱😱
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Friday: Cross District Collaboration
Week of February 16
Bus Duty: Levy and Cysewski
Monday: Presidents Day- No School
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Friday: Certified Staff Collaboration
Week of February 23
Bus Duty: Wilson and Pensky
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Friday: Non Work Day






