Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Please Panic! Allowing the Moment to Become the Teacher

I am involved in a project where I am working with a collection of teachers who have been assigned to facilitate action research projects with three to five other teachers. (Action research is defined as practitioners systematically studying their own classroom or administrative practice, through the process of defining research questions, collecting data, analyzing data, synthesizing and sharing with other practitioners what was learned, and taking action for change.)

We met on Monday to discuss the topic of data collection and how to facilitate and coach teachers through this process. During our discussion we took some time to focus on how to deal with panic.

When confronted with a new process or situation, it is natural for us to feel a certain amount of trepidation or fear. By natural I mean all creatures have a tendency to recoil when dealing with an unknown. Try approaching a strange cat or dog and notice how they react to your presence. Even when you put your finger near the soft, open body of a sea anemone, it closes up. Fear of the unknown is a part of what it means to be alive. It can even be said to be a “natural reaction to moving closer to the truth” (Chödrön, 2000).

To facilitate our discussion, we conducted a Chalk Talk (pdf) to help participants explore what they know about a particular subject. Most of the written responses on the subject of how to deal with panic talked about sending soothing chocolate and emails, meeting one and one to discuss concerns and how to proceed, and even meeting for drinks off campus.

As we were debriefing the question and analyzing our collective responses, one participant chimed in and said to the effect: What’s wrong with panic? Isn’t a relative amount of fear a good motivator?

Getting to know fear

When I think about edublogger discussions that focus on the adoption of technology in the classroom, fear is regularly cited as a primary demotivator. Reasons for this sensation vary from issues associated with failure, self-doubt, and self-trust, to name but a few.

In reality, discussions surrounding how to deal with fear don’t quite convince us; they often pull us closer. The important point here seems to be getting to know our fear, examining it closer, staring at it square in the eye – not as a means of solving our problem, but as a way of undoing old ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling.

Confronting fear is really about waking our courage. It’s like adopting the perspective of a young child. Are young children naturally afraid of snakes or is that something they learn? Where do we learn to fear darkness or things that go “bump” in the night? Is it just our imagination or is it something somebody told us? Perhaps it’s a combination of both.

What happens when we become intimate with fear? Disassociating from fear comes naturally and it’s good to know that we do that. However, confronting it brings us into the present moment; it can teach us things we have never read, heard, or seen. Perhaps bravery is not being fearless; it’s being truly intimate with fear.

The “trick” is getting people to keep exploring and not bail out, especially when we discover something is not what we thought or expected it to be. That is something we find out over and over – nothing is what we thought it would be.

Pema Chödrön tells a story (p. 14-15) about one of her teacher’s that worth sharing. While visiting with elementary school students, her teacher, who grew up in Tibet and had to flee the country when the Chinese government was rounding up dissenters, was asked by a student if he was ever afraid. He talked about how his teacher told him to visit places he didn’t like, like graveyards, and encouraged him to explore things that made him uncomfortable. He told a story of traveling to a monastery where he had never been before. As he and his companions neared the gates, he saw a large, snarling, barking guard dog struggling to free itself from its chain. The dog seemed intent on attacking him and his companions, pulling on it’s chain, straining, barking, biting angrily. The teacher and his companions, keeping their distance, walked past the dog and entered the gate. All at once, the chain snapped and the dog rushed at them. The teacher’s companions froze in panic and screamed. The teacher heeled and ran as fast as he could – directly at the dog. The dog was caught completely by surprise and put his tail between his legs and ran away.

When we experience fear, our bodies and minds often freeze in terror. Chödrön suggests that when we “aspire to neither indulge nor repress” our fear – “a hardness is us will dissolve” (p. 15). Learning to be courageous as such is no easy feat, but it is something that we need to be able to model for our students whether they are 5 years old or 55.

As the participant in my group expressed, fear/panic can be an excellent teacher. It can remind us what our students feel when they encounter new material to learn. A little bit of fear is like a message telling us important information about who we are and how we feel about things. It also becomes a wonderful “teachable moment” allowing us to examine why we feel the way we do. Ignoring fear only perpetuates ignorance; confronting fear is not the solution to our feeling the way we do, but it does allow us an opportunity to look at it, examine our feelings, and perhaps take an alternate route.

So next time you are introducing new technologies to others and you sense panic and doom, relax and smile – you have just created a wonderful opportunity, a teachable moment, for people to learn about themselves as human beings as well as advancing their knowledge about teaching and learning with technology. To quote Bob Dylan, one of my favorite philosophers: “I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.”



Reference:

Chödrön, P. (2000). When things fall apart: Heart advice for difficult times. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications.

Photo Credits:

Panic by cboyle. Retrieved 10 January 2007 from www.flickr.com/photos/qualicum/20810634/.

Sea anemone by druk_die_knopple. Retrieved 10 January 2007 from www.flickr.com/photos/booshank/130038905/.

echo1 by Kristal. Retrieved 10 January 2007 from www.flickr.com/photos/kristyk/161966943/

Woofstock-Barky Dog by Mute*. Retrieved 10 January 2007 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutephotoblog/166527950/.

teachable moment by phillip fierlinger. retrieved 10 January 2007 from www.flickr.com/photos/philip/185374966/.