I was sitting in the classroom trying to look intelligent in case the teacher looked at me.
Looking back, I realise it wasn't only gym I dreaded at school. Every class was a torment. It wasn't knowledge I objected to but instruction. Why couldn't they just tell us what books to read and leave us to get on and read them?
You get on TV and you become more of a star and it makes it real hard to go back to school and sit in a classroom, put your hand up if you have a question or something.
My parents moved around Stockton and Lodi. I had a lot of anxiety about jumping into another classroom. They were always putting me in special ed. But I was smart; I wasn't like these kids in the special-ed classes. But it would make me feel a little bit stupid.
I used to be very shy. I hated going to a new classroom and having to make new friends, meet new teachers, and adjust to a new environment.
Every single substitute teacher growing up could not pronounce my name, so whenever someone pauses, I'm like, 'Oh, that's me.'
I lived in constant terror of being asked a question in class. Even if I knew the answer, I was never able to tell it before the class.
On my first day teaching my own classroom, I threw up before I entered the building.
I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me - to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That's normally how I perform. That's how I am.
I just can't - I can't exist in normal group situations. A classroom, where you have to sort of jockey for position, compete for attention - I would just withdraw.
I always had a weird thing with being the last person somewhere... like a movie theater or a classroom. I get a weird sense of anxiety.
Still today, I cannot cross the threshold of a teaching institution without physical symptoms, in my chest and my stomach, of discomfort or anxiety. And yet I have never left school.
I find teaching - I like it, but I find just walking into the classroom and facing the students very difficult.
When I enrolled in college at age 19, I had a total of eight years of formal classroom education. As a result, I was not comfortable with formal lectures and receiving regular homework assignments.
A classroom setting for me was an audience.
Very often kids don't ask questions in class because they don't want to be seen asking a question.
