We learn fear when we are young

The next few entries will talk about why we are so afraid to ask the hard questions as teachers and what we an do about it.

When we are young and in school we are told to keep quiet, be compliant, and to do what we are told. In high school I have extremely smart, gifted, and talented students that have been trained so well to give the teacher what the teacher wants that it has taken an entire year to get them to think for themselves. Only now are they starting to ask each other for help and not asking me for the right answer. We have had many discussions that there can be a difference between getting an “A” and learning. What is the worse thing that will happen to you if you get a B+… you get a B+. Growing up students are rewarded for following the procedures and for giving our teachers and parents what they want. I am not saying that we should be allowed to do whatever we want but there needs to be some dialogue about what is right or the best thing to do. We are taught in school that when we ask “why” a lot of the time we fell pain in some way (guilt, shame, embarrassment) and when we “go with the teacher’s program” we are rewarded and called a “model student” and a “good student”. This happened to me most of my years between 1st and 8th grades. We learn from an early to not ask too many difficult questions, do what you are told, the teacher is the expert and they alone have all the answers, and that you better do what is expected of you, even at the expense of our own needs, dreams, and life. If her book, It's All About We, Diane Gossen gives an example of how conventional teachers treat students who question.

Questions from students are seen as an affront to their authority rather than opportunities to dialogue. Challenges to the curriculum are frowned upon. Then there is jockeying for position that teacher searches for a more severe or unexpected consequence with which to surprise the student. Western discipline does not strengthen youth. It shames them and weakens their resolve to do the right thing, it alienates them.


~Diane Gossen

By punishing students who question and think outside the box, we teach them that to be accepted and to be worthy of our praise and affection we need to keep our mouths shut, do what we are told to do, and I not ask hard questions. Then we wonder why as adults most of us just keep her mouth shut and “go with the status quo”. I was lucky that I was not raised that way. I was taught to think for myself. To be your own person and to do what is right and not necessarily what is popular. There is a time and a place for the questions, learn the difference, but do not be afraid to do what is right.


Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.



~James Freeman Clarke

Shawn