While this dark vision is a possibility, the educators I know are not at all comfortable with the thought of returning to the days when students mainly feared the adults in their schools. So far so good. The truth is, I don t really want to live in a world where teenagers or adults are walking around completely without fear. Fear is a survival mechanism not just for humans but for animals as well. It has a purpose to make us wary, to prompt us to fight or to flee, and ultimately to save our lives.
Fear is what keeps the little child from running into the street.
Fear is what keeps a teenager from drinking and driving or engaging in other risky behaviors. Fear is what keeps you out of situations that will get you killed. If your students are walking around without fear, they are in trouble. On reflection, it seems to me that education and fear are bound together somehow. In a sense, education is about learning how to manage your fear, of learning what to be afraid of and what not to be afraid of, and of learning how to walk through fear when it isn t required but it is there anyway.