Good luck on overcoming your anxiety (or at least getting it to a manageable level)! I have a sister with crippling anxiety and her Dr is also doing exposure therapy and it's really making a difference. I feel terrible for the kids with anxiety, but looking at it from the teacher's perspective, they might feel like if they let one kid out of presenting, the whole class will claim to have anxiety just to get out of doing it. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it is a factor. You're also right about it being a necessary skill... If you're applying for a job you can't request that the employer let you skip the interview because it gives you anxiety. I know the kids can't just "suck it up" or "get over it" because that's not how anxiety works... It's more than being nervous or a little scared. I think the kids with anxiety need to get into treatment. Exposure therapy doesn't work for everyone, but there are other therapies that can help get your anxiety to a manageable level.

This is true. Cognitive behavioural Therapy. Proven and it works. I've had anxiety and suffered from different fears but facing them head on makes you realize you can do it, and it works. Baby steps are key.

"You will need this skill in your future" No, a lot of people never have to do a public presentation in their entire life, it's not an essential skill.

You need a new therapist. There are MANY other ways of treating anxiety. Talk to a real psychiatrist. Exposure or flooding is only one of many, many, many ways and it's not the best for every person.

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Your shrink is an a*****e who has no idea what he's talking about. The desensitization training that he's talking about is a failure, and has NOT been recommended for the past 30 years at leas.

Never had to do this in school, no presenting of anything. We did have to read aloud but that's somewhat easier for most people as they're not having to come up with their own words. Of course it's different for those who have a stutter or dyslexia but then those pupils should be getting additional support. Anxiety is also not the same thing at all as being 'uncomfortable' doing something. I don't enjoy public speaking but I became proficient at it as part of my job - when you know your subject well it can help. I wasn't anxious though. School is about learning but they have to accept that those with additional problems should have additional support or a different approach. We can and should make accommodations.

I think not all cases are identical. When your anxiety causes you breathing issues to the point that you PASS OUT, maybe you should be allowed to be tested in a different manner.

if you have good teachers, you can often come up with workarounds for things like this, and, respectfully, you don't sound like you have anxiety. the things that happen in an anxious brain and body are usually completely out of the person's control, e.g. panic attacks and stuttering. no amount of forcing or positive reinforcement will make these things stop; medication and therapy often can't stop these things either, they're just something you live with or manage. exposure therapy DOES NOT WORK for most things, anxiety included. i understand ADHD is also a serious issue, but it's on a completely different continuum from anxiety, and isn't handled in the same way. you having a hard time in trig is not the same as your brain literally shutting down due to panic. did you not see the tweets in this post about people who went and threw up after they had to present? that's not an okay thing. things that make us "uncomfortable" aren't always a test of how much we can tolerate.

I disagree. It's not always "just don't like it". For some people like me, I have mild presentation anxiety and get shaky, clammy, and my heart races for the duration of the presentation. For others, they have full blown panic attacks which can almost completely restrict breathing, cause them to throw up, feel like they are having a heart attack (literally, not as an exaggeration for heart racing, actual pain), etc. This crosses the line into a physical disability, don't you think? Exposure therapy for extreme cases should be handled by professionals who know what they're doing and won't accidentally cause more trauma to the person, not just some history teacher who says "get over it, you can't avoid this forever. That's the difference here, I think.

I admire your perseverance but I think you misunderstood a little...the issue is anxiety related to public speaking rather than unwillingness to learn / put the work into preparing a presentation. Someone with serious anxiety will be unable to deliver their work because they are so terrified of having so many eyes on them. You can't think and you can't control your voice, fidgeting, sweating, red face etc. It can feel humiliating and doesn't do justice to the quality of the work done

Any half decent teacher can get a sense of how their students are doing and grade them accordingly without abusing them this way.

Anxiety, as a word, is sometimes used loosely, which I can see makes the situation rather murky. :) There's normal anxiety, even moments of severe anxiety, in everyone. But anxiety, the diagnosis, is different. It means the chemicals in your brain aren't working right. Significant difference :)

Anxiety disorder is NOT just that they "don't like it." It's a serious and sometimes FATAL disorder. Educate yourself before spouting off ridiculous s**t like this.

So, being a teacher myself, you absolutely SHOULD get accommodations for test taking with severe ADHD like that. I have some students that I am required to allow to take tests in multiple sessions because they cannot handle one long session. The thing of it is though, if you're good at concealing how distressing test taking is for you then your teachers may not know to advocate for getting you a 504 plan or IEP, which are exactly what you need to be legally allowed these accommodations. It sounds like you flew under the radar. This is why it is so important for parents to advocate for their kids, and for kids to advocate for themselves. Teachers spend a lot of our days putting out fires and advocating for the most obviously troubled kids. We're not mind readers. If you have an issue that your teacher isn't seeing, LET THEM KNOW. They're there to help.

It sounds like you had some coping mechanisms :) without them we are a mess. I can see how you'd feel that way- there are degrees though, and some are not as well off as you. Especially if their diagnosis came late in life, or their parents refuse to let them have medication. The problem I think is more the technique of how the students are made to present, not the concept itself. Some may need to take baby steps and work up to it.

theyre not entitled. its not fair to force people to present in class if they get really stressed. and theyre not 'opting out'. they still did the work they just dont want to present. cant u have any sympathy or empathy or are you just an empty human being?

It's not entitlement. I have social anxiety and I have since I was a kid. Presentations and recitals for band were an absolute nightmare for me. I got stuck in a speech class. I can write essays, speeches and research papers extremely well even almost 30 years later but public speaking is impossible for me. I can and do things that make me uncomfortable and always have. It's not being uncomfortable that's the problem. I'm sorry you had a rough time in school with tests but if you haven't experienced that kind and level of anxiety that this is about you're not going to understand. You come across very condescending and judgmental. I managed to make it through the whole term in speech with only having to give a couple of speeches and still passed with high As. It wasn't easy but that teacher was one of the best, most understanding teachers I've ever had. My anxiety disorders have only gotten worse as the years go by. Making a phone call paralyzes me now.

Evil little thing. You clearly don't know anything about anxiety. It is not about not liking something. It can be a serious mental health problem. And have you considered all the bullied kids out there? I remember how awful it was to have to have a presentation in front of my bullies. Presentations never helped my anxiety, but made it worse. You seriously cannot compare exams to presentations. Your ignorance is insulting...

Absolutely agree with you ELT. It's a skill that should be learned, like any other.

I suppose your struggle was unsuccessful

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There are loads of jobs where people work away in the background and will never need these so-called life skills of presenting. Interview panels are not the same thing before someone suggests they are. A presentation to a school room of your peers is far more scary a prospect than an interview panel of at most a handful of people - with whom if you mess up you'll probably never see them again unlike your class mates who will probably take the p**s out of you if you stuff up. There are many careers where people won't be expected to present anything, ever. That said these children need professional help with their anxiety.

What teacher would have the time to do that for 30-100 students? And what does the rest of the class do during the 150 - 500 minutes or more that the teacher is individually with those students? Also, a teacher is not a mental health professional or occupational therapist. If the child needs therapy in order to do normal things, that should be provided by a licensed professional.

A job interview is NOT the same thing as presenting to over 25 people.

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I totally agree Philler. "Getting the tools to succeed" is exactly what education *should* be.... sadly it isn't always (especially if your teacher is incompetent). The fact that they're saying "but I haven't learned already, so I don't want to learn it now", I believe is the biggest challenge.

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*you've been told all your life you have "debilitating anxiety." There, I fixed that for you.

@RobertYoudontneedit: I don’t need a lecture from you. My son is a former Marine who served in Desert Storm, 1st Amphibian Assault Battalion, MEF-II. My brother-in-law is former Deputy Director of Staff of the United States Air Force, European Theater. Read again to refresh your memory that my remarks were about not throwing kids out there without proper training and coaching beforehand, like you had with Basic Training and drills. You don’t sound to me like a service member who has experienced professional combat yet because the ones I know that made it out don’t talk like that. Combat veterans are the first to tell us that nothing can prepare you for “the real thing.” There is no shame in confronting a teacher to let them know that you are not yet ready to execute on their assignment if they overlooked the prerequisite education and training that the student is paying them for. And many students don’t manage to survive high school for a lot of reasons. Thank you for your service.

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How did students before about 2000 manage to survive high school?! Did they all have some kind of super-powers of oration and charisma? No, they just weren't snowflakes who melted at the first sign of anxiety. They didn't catastrophize everything that got their pulse racing, and didn't pathologize every fear. You are the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and your ancestors faced saber-toothed cats who wanted that piece of meat they were trying to cook over a fire. Your ancestors fought in wars and they prevailed (or they wouldn't've produced children). Believing that something like speaking in front of classmates can debilitate you will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And as someone who is currently serving in the military, I know firsthand that the autonomic nervous system CAN be trained to respond with what is needed, rather than just collapsing. How on earth do you think that soldiers make it through combat?! By training to overcome reflexive fear.

Good for you, but it doesn't work for everyone. Also, your teacher sounds awful.

Parmeisan, I'm so glad that your determination got you through such an awful experience as having anxiety when public speaking. I totally hear you!! Been there myself. Those of us who get through it, find a variety of ways to get through it. I'm so glad you found yours. I understand the horror of the initial stages of learning to overcome that kind of anxiety - but all the vomit-worthy horror, is worth it in the end, huh? Well done mate. You did well.

Lynda Whetstone -

Ashley Nell easy