Welcome to the October sessions of #WeirdEd! (Yes, I know last week was October too but I just thought of this so leave me alone). This week and next we will be talking spooooOOooOooOooky topics in honor of my favorite holiday which has been eaten by Hot Topic- Halloween!
This week I want to talk about fear. Fear is a very real thing and something that can motivate or destroy. It's something that we all can relate to (as opposed to, say, very specific classic science fiction tv shows).
Fear makes us make choices. Unless it shuts us down completely. Fear can be unexpected. Sometimes you have no idea you're scared of a thing until it happens. Fear-based choices can be good but are often poor or at least poorly justified. Fear gets a bad rap. Real men aren't afraid. Bull. Like Gandhi* said "Bravery isn't the absence of fear, it's being afraid and acting anyway."
Teaching, at least for me, has tons to fear. I'm not scared of the kids themselves. I'm not scared of parents. Or my administrators (side note: I refuse to be scared of my school district leadership. That gets you pushed around and mistreated.).
I am scared of failing my kids. I'm scared of lessons that bomb so regularly that there's no way they learned it and why can't I reach them and if I can't help this kid he is sooooo screwed because this thing is the foundation for a thousand other things.
That entire previous paragraph is the real reason why I'm not a kindergarten teacher. It's allll place setting and foundation building. That's freaking terrifying.
There's things we fear that we shouldn't and things we fear that we should but are completely irrational. There's that little voice in our heads that knows if the kids really wanted to they could take over the room because there's a lot of them.
In case you think I've forgotten, we aren't the only ones with fear in school. The kids fear too. And their fear is more important than our fear. That's why we shoo the hornet away even though ahmygawdImgonnagetstungahhhh. Our job is to remove fear and replace it with trust and faith and knowledge.
What scares you?
*on the internet you can attribute any quote to anyone. Just ask Facebook
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