Teaching Tip #173

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #173

Core value #2 - Fear doesn’t get a vote.

I saw this at work last week at MCTE.  During one of the breakout sessions, the teacher sitting next to me got up and left!  Well, I’ll set the context:  the presenter had tasked us with interviewing a stranger and then writing a story from their life.

I’m not that big of an extrovert – and I was nervous as I knew no one in the session – but I also recalled how I ask my students to do stuff like this every single day in my classroom, so I was willing to take a step outside of my comfort zone and go along with it.

But the teacher sitting next to me just gasped and said to her friends, “I. Can’t. Do. This.”

Then they proceeded to get up and leave the session.

I was shocked.  I thought several things: what a hypocrite!  Aren’t we supposed to be learning at this conference?  Why do we ask our kids to things when we ourselves aren’t willing to do the same?  And lastly, wow, I bet your classes suck!

The problem, as I see it, was that this teacher let fear get a vote.  Worse yet, she let it rule the day.  What was the worst that could happen?  How hard is interviewing someone?  How hard is it to ask people about themselves?  I mean, who doesn’t like to talk about themselves?

The teacher had a golden chance to put herself in her students’ shoes, but she let fear ruin it.