Downloadables A lot of fears exist in our schools.
Our students navigate complex fears daily—from being judged by their peers, being stressed about their grades, or being overwhelmed by their futures, their identities, and their abilities to juggle all of their responsibilities at once.
Our schools radiate fears from a systems-level when it comes to school safety, school funding, and institutional injustice baked into the buildings themselves.
And our OWN fears as educators simmer under the surface, too. Do we have the tools to help our students succeed? And even if we do: will it be enough? And even if it is: can this work be sustainable?
If school was the sun, then fear would be the earth—orbiting around our educational lives 365 days a year. But, how can we move beyond fear and towards hope?
Before we can help our students navigate their fears, we first need to recognize our own. By analyzing and discussing our fears, we can teach our students how to approach their fears in a healthy way, too.
The Identifying My Fears Chart is a great protocol for naming our fears and making considerations for how we can work through them. Try using the tool on your own, and then use it with your students.
Prefer to work digitally? Access an online version of the Identifying My Fears at School Chart here.
A lot of fears exist in our schools, there’s no doubt about it. But when we talk about them, we can eliminate the fear that we are navigating them alone. Fear will still orbit around us, but we can stop its gravitational pull when we acknowledge its existence. This allows us to add another planet into our universe: hope.
Interested in learning more about how our fear of making mistakes can negatively impact student learning, and the ways we can overcome it? Check out 5314: Making Mistakes Meaningful for Students AND Teachers which explores our complex relationships with failure, perfectionism, and fear so we can embrace our mistakes as learning opportunities for our students and ourselves! Packed full of lesson plan ideas, reflection opportunities, and analysis of our current practices, this course is the perfect antidote to self-doubt!
About the Author
Julie Kuntz holds a B.A. in English and a Master’s in Education. Drawing on her years as a Middle School ELA Teacher, Julie develops content that is practical and highly engaging! Additionally, she is passionate about fostering equity in schools.
Fun Fact: Julie and her husband own a custom home renovation company, Custom by Kuntz!
