Fears

What are your biggest fears?  Spiders?  I know this lady, ( Let’s call her Mary), that will wait until her husband (Let’s call him Tim) comes home to kill a spider that has been in the house since 6:00 a.m.  Snakes?  Heights? – can tall people actually be fearful of themselves?  Germophobic?  Airplanes?  Reminds me of the scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas where Lucy is asking Charlie Brown what he is afraid of when he discovers that he is afraid of everything. Lucy had him prepay the five cents.  Water?  Abandonment?  Blood?  Clowns?  The number 13?  Bridges?  Bees?  Belly buttons? (Omaphalophobia).  None of you have Didaskaleinophobia – the fear of school.  I read a study of the biggest fears that people have.  Shocking results.  The number 2 fear is death and the number 1 fear is public speaking.  What?  What?  So, at a funeral, that person would rather be in the box than giving the eulogy?!  Where am I going with this?  Read on.

In school, kids are afraid of the unknown…or if their locker combination works or if their friends have the same lunch period.  No, it is fear of the unknown.  It also is a “subject-based” fear.  We have kids who absolutely hate going to P.E. class.  This is not because we have crummy teachers. We don’t.  Their hatred stems from them not being too athletic and some think that is what P.E. is all about.  It is not.  To those whom Mathematics comes easily could not imagine that anyone would be fearful of getting along well in that subject because the concepts being taught are not in their wheelhouse.  Some kids don’t like to write…because they’re not very good at it. Some kids are not very good artists and the thought of attending Art class raises their heart rate because “I stink at Art.”  Science?  I may have to touch a frog and I am afraid to death of frogs therefore I hate Science.  If your subject is not listed here, don’t worry – some kid is fearful.  Fear usually stems from a lack of confidence.  Even as adults, people do not participate in things that they aren’t very good at. The things that they are good at is because they are confident in their skills. Part of our job as educators is to instill confidence in our students.  Confidence must come before competence.  We need to take advantage of the time that we have to build confidence in our students who are lacking from it. We can never expect them to just “magically” get better at something without feeling confident in it first.   You may have to spiral back at different development levels and pitch it where they hit it.  That builds confidence in moving forward.  If you choose not to do this, then prepare for a long list of student failures.  Confidence must come before competence.