"You get test anxiety. You’ve always gotten test anxiety. Did you even tell them?”
“Colleges don’t care about that stuff.’ She folded her hands in her lap. “And anyway, none of it matters.”
“ Of course, it matters!”
What’s wrong with me? Am I stupid? Kareena Shah finds herself thinking back to this one excerpt from her favorite book whenever such questions cloud her judgment.
A senior at University of Illinois in Chicago, Kareena is one of only fifty founding tutors who worked alongside Sal Khan (of Khan Academy) to shape Schoolhouse.world, a non-profit peer tutoring platform with over 29 thousand learners. She has worked with over 500+ learners, and led various initiatives, whether it be expansion of Schoolhouse to India or the community engagement team, a group of tutors who host team building events. Her charitable work at Schoolhouse has inspired her to pursue education post-undergrad, all while tackling inclusivity, problem-solving, and ensuring that certain experiences aren’t looked over, as her own had been.
“Every time a test was laid out in front of me, my hands would begin to shake, and my panic would kick in, ” she describes, as just like 25-40% of the general population, Kareena had often succumbed to test anxiety. The whirl of emotions and the growing pit in our stomach that we often feel before a test, are ten times amplified by such anxiety, leading to a unproductive and quite isolating environment— one Kareena hopes to guide her future students through. “I work with middle school students and it's not easy,” she explains. “Sometimes they don't realize that is what they are feeling so I explain my story. I wasn't diagnosed till my junior year of high school and my symptoms started showing up my freshman year. So, sometimes, it takes time before it happens.”
Test anxiety has been proven to disproportionately affect racial minorities and women. It hinders a person’s ability to retrieve stored information because of an anxiety blockage. Additionally, according to the book, Anxiety in Schools, “some researchers claim math anxiety [a derivative of test anxiety] to be a genuine phobia, identified by standard diagnostic criteria.. e.g., signs of elevated cognitive or physiological arousal.” If left unchecked, math anxiety can develop into math avoidance, which leads to students being discouraged from pursuing a career involving even a modicum of math, such as STEM or business. Therefore, Kareena hopes that as a teacher, she can foster confidence in others, just as other teachers had for her.
“The reassurance that I was given from that particular teacher had instilled a new boost of confidence that I would have never been able to obtain on my own. I was taught to believe in myself, and demonstrate kindness and patience to others. She was there not just for me but for each student coming from different backgrounds…This was the first time I felt safe in high school and that a teacher actually cared about me.”
In her own lesson plans, Kareena makes sure to emphasize self love and reflection by helping students understand that they have their own unique identities, and depressors. But, she also makes sure they know that being unique in your individual struggles, doesn’t mean you are alone. “Often times I always felt my teachers always taught for the test and saw students as numbers rather than individuals. I wanted to change that and provide a support system.”
However, as important as Kareena’s aims may be, they certainly aren’t popular. Between the years of 2019-20, only about 4% of undergrads pursued teaching. Additionally, 3.4% of those teachers were Asian and, more startlingly, just 1.6% of the teachers in Illinois, Kareena’s home state, were so. Oftentimes, teaching can be thought of as long days rewarded by a lack of accountability and appreciation from the administration and parents, and dealing with children who lack maturity or awareness. However, Kareena approaches it differently. “Whenever there are kids around I usually will find myself wanting to hang out with them over adults. I love seeing the lightbulb go off in their head.”
She found such a youth-led, welcoming environment on Schoolhouse.world. As a founding tutor, she has watched the platform grow into one that offers courses in various branches of math, ranging from Pre-Algebra to Calc III. In addition to this, the platform also offers SAT boot camps and Indian Curriculum reviews in 100+ countries. The organization even works with high-ranking universities such as UChicago, MIT, and Georgia Tech to highlight Schoolhouse experience on college applications. But, more important than any impressive statistic is the Schoolhouse community itself. Through team meetings and fun community events such as the Tutor Circles, opportunities for tutors to meetup and discuss tips n’ tricks, Schoolhouse members find like-minded individuals and lifelong mentors.
When asked about struggles she faced while shaping the platform, Kareena responded, “Instead of struggles, I would like to think of them as powerful moments. [For example], when we were on Coda and the website crashed, snow days [website maintenance day] were created…I had the chance to work with..the small product team then and get close to them. I was able to also join countless zooms [full] of volunteers and product team [members] which as a result led me to meet some of them in person. ”
Such experiences have also played a hand in her determination to learn new skills, driving her towards the deep end of EDTech. “I think technology and multimedia is so crucial just because looking at a textbook and writing down the answers can only go so far. You want to make your students engaged and create interactive lessons that even they will enjoy… In terms of the future [of EDTech] I want to say I want to be a part of it. With the burnout rate of teachers unfortunately being so high, there's a chance I would have to pivot to an ed-tech organization such as Schoolhouse.”
At the end of the day, Kareena finds herself on the excitingly barren horizon that is the the future of education, and she carries herself into the dusk with one mantra: “a good teacher can teach something that will last a day, but a great teacher will teach something that will last a lifetime.”
Thank you to Kareena for agreeing to interview! It was greatly appreciated!
Works Cited
Schaeffer, Katherine. “A Dwindling Number of New U.S. College Graduates Have a Degree in Education a Dwindling Number of New U.S. College Graduates Have a Degree in Education.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 27 Sept. 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/27/a-dwindling-number-of-new-u-s-college-graduates-have-a-degree-in-education/.
“Teacher Demographics and Statistics [2023]: Number of Teachers in the US.” Teacher Demographics and Statistics [2023]: Number Of Teachers In The US, 9 Sept. 2022, https://www.zippia.com/teacher-jobs/demographics/.
Hanfesa, Sisay, et al. “Test Anxiety and Associated Factors among First-Year Health Science Students of University of Gondar, Northwest Ethiopia: A Cross-Sectional Study.” Advances in Medical Education and Practice, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2 Nov. 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7646484/.
Cassady, Jerrell C. Anxiety in Schools: The Causes, Consequences, and Solutions for Academic Anxieties. Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2010.
“Free Online Tutoring.” Schoolhouse, https://schoolhouse.world/.