Fear-Based Learning and the Failure of Education

FEAR-BASED LEARNING

Fear-Based Learning Theodore Roosevelt once said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” but that was easy for him to say, unless you are among the twenty-million students in America’s public schools, or any form of schooling. A huge debate in the education system has become the fear that is now instilled in students from the time they start school until they finish with PhDs. That is if they are fortunate enough to make it that far in any educational system. From the time you are born fear is instilled in you, people are always telling you to stay away from strangers and keep the door locked at all times when home alone in the house. There is also fear when parents strapping down on you to succeed in school or you will become a failure in life. This is not meant to hurt parents, but they start off by teaching their children to fear everything; if they don’t children won’t drink their milk or eat the rest of their dinner and they will not grow up to be big and strong. Society may play the biggest role outside the family setting; children that watch television learn how to fear.

Throughout my semester here in DC, I have experienced situations in Garrison Elementary School, my peace studies class, and I sat in at a high school in DC. I never realized how fear-based education is so popular with the way students are taught in today’s educational system. Instilling fear in students has become a way for teachers to teach more effectively. It is scary that a teacher must be feared in order to teach effectively.

A major reason for this problem may come from testing. Every year hundreds of thousands of teachers have to administer student assessment tests, common knowledge tests, classroom academic tests, among local, state and federal regulated tests to see how much funding the school district is going receive. When I went to the DC high school, students were asked what they feared the most. Out of the thirty or so students, 3/5 said that they feared of failing out of school, especially on student assessment tests and academic tests. Teachers are no longer teaching students basic and non-basic skills that would most fundamentally stimulate and educate students for the rest of their lives; but rather teaching them how to pass a test and what they will need to know on that test. Teachers have fears that if their students do not score above average on this assessment test, that their job and future as a teacher will be in jeopardy. In order for a teacher and school district to combat this, teachers and administration have put so much emphasis and importance on some of these tests, and students think and feel that if they don’t pass the tests, they are going to fail out of school, or their teacher will lose his/her job. Remember that Theodore Roosevelt once said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”, and this is what is taught to students.

Fear is instilled in you from the time you are born to the time you die. You are taught to fear and if you don’t become successful you are a failure, if you do not get all A’s in school you are a failure. These two fears are probably the most common in all of students. Not everyone is going to the next Albert Einstein, or the next President of the United States. These life styles are the luck of the draw, but society somehow keeps proving that with fear-based learning everyone can become like Einstein or a CEO of a major company. The United States of America has the highest drop out rate of school students than any other country in the world. This should send up a red flag for the people who study these kinds of statistics, especially the President’s administration. When the No Child Left Behind Act comes up for reauthorization in 2012, there will be less and less people graduating from college than ever before in the history of education. Why you may ask? Reason being the No Child Left Behind Act federal funding will be cut back from the schools that are not meeting the requirements set by federal standards of improving education. Teachers are teaching for fear of being without a job and students are learning for fear of not being able to pass these tests. Learning in schools has gone to what is on the test and test strategies, rather than the true reason you go to school to learn about history, mathematics, English, literature, .

We all have fears of some sort, but fear-based education is real and a dangerous method of learning and teaching. Students should not have to worry about failing out of school, but instead striving to perform their best work. Teachers do not need the extra added stress of knowing that if they do not meet the standards, their jobs may be threatened.

I decided to choose this as a topic for my second paper because it has come up many times in our Peace Studies class, and lectures I have gone to throughout this semester have also discussed this issue. As an undergraduate Elementary Education major, not once in any of my child development classes, my education classes, or any other class has fear-based learning been addressed. It was not until I took this Peace Studies class did I learn how much fear is instilled in us as students throughout our academic careers. This is definitely a topic in education on which you can write your graduate thesis. As I sit here and write this essay I am fear that what I have is not enough and my grade will be in jeopardy. This is a type of paper that could be lengthened into a thousand pages; I just hope my message is clear in this essay. Myself, future educators, and current teachers now will realize that education is more than tests and politics, but rather learning and developing into an independent, individualized people. I hope that one day we all could make a difference in society and not wake up fearing that we are failures if we do not go on to college.