Fear Paired with Courage

This past May, my family and I had the incredible opportunity to travel to the beaches of Normandy, France, to stand on the sand where, 80 years ago, young men ran, fought, fell, and sacrificed for the freedom of many from the tyranny of the ideology of Nazism.

On our way to the beach, we listened to a podcast explaining the history of Normandy, hoping to inspire our 11 year old and 13 year old with the context of what they were going to experience. We listened as the historian shared about the subterfuge employed by the Allied nations to disguise the location of the largest amphibian to land invasion ever carried out–ruses like fake intelligence indicating different plans, parachuting dummies, and smaller distracting invasions. We learned about the encampments of the soldiers for a year on British soil where they trained, played, and waited for the “go” message. We learned about how the architects of the attack planned out the timing to the exact minute to line up with the phases of the moon, the tide, the weather. We learned how a mistake of landing at low tide meant the men would have had to run too far to reach the cliffs or low tide meant they would have arrived as sitting ducks. 

The history was fascinating, captivating, and humbling, but it was not until I stood on one of the cliffs with my 11 year old son that it really hit me. The young men who arrived upon those shores were just that–young–18-20 year old boys, barely capable of growing full beards and lusting after the women they left behind or met on the British isle. My 11 year old is only a few years behind, so as he and I stood in awe of the landscape and the magnitude of all that was won and lost on D-day, I could not help but wonder what was going through the minds of those young men as they sat on the duck boats readying themselves for battle. 

In reading through testimony, I stumbled upon statements from an American soldier talking about the final briefing they received before the invasion: “I tried to imagine how much fear I would have, you know, to keep me doing my job. I suppose everyone else was wondering the same thing”. 

The fear: of course there was fear–coursing through their nervous systems, jumbling up their minds, radiating out of their limbs in the form of shaking and fidgeting. 

Yet, don’t we sometimes think of bravery as devoid of fear? Don’t we sometimes see fear and trembling as signs of weakness? Don’t we criticize and infantilize those who show emotions that convey something beyond stoicism? 

Fear is not the absence of courage. Instead, courage requires us to make friends with our fear, see it for what it is, and claim our power to move beyond. Courage requires us to be self-aware, because the truth is that fear lives within all of us. Only the courageous see it, name it, and recognize that it can be either a limitation or a motivation. The courageous recognize that fear is not something they alone feel but is jointly felt across humanity, and the courageous move beyond fear to action. Courage and fear live on the same horizon of the human experience.

Why do I bring up fear at the beginning of another school year?  

I see a lot of unnamed fear in our society right now, absent of courage, but it is not fear of the other or the fear of our enemies that I worry about. It is the fear of failure, of not living up to our own hopes and dreams, of not impressing ourselves, of feeling inferior, of inadequacy that gives me pause here at the beginning of the school year. 

When we live with unnamed fears directed at self, we tend to turn those fears into external blame, disconnection, and othering. 

For example, when I hear a teacher make a statement like, “Students today are so disrespectful” or “Parents should be embarrassed by the behaviors I see in my classroom,” what I am actually discerning is they are fearful of not being able to make connections or relationships with this generation, or they fear not having the skills to create a classroom environment relevant and calm enough for learning. When I hear an educator say, “Remember when students actually cared about learning,” what I hear is they fear their skills as an educator are outdated and not impactful. 

Maybe my interpretation sounds harsh. Maybe even some of you bristle, because you truly believe that society is getting worse and devaluing education; I do believe we could have great conversations about both of those topics. However, when it comes to educators who, at the very heart of their work, are supposed to see the incredible possibilities for every child who walks through their doors, I don’t think the root, creating the attitudes of shame, blame, and disconnection, is external.  

What might happen if, like those young men, sitting on the duck boats, waiting for shore, we at the beginning of the year look around our schools and recognize that we collectively hold a fear of not doing enough to save the children, the adolescents, who walk through our doors. What might happen if we all name that failing to connect, failing to move the academic needle, failing to inspire is a fear that so many of us walk around with in our classrooms and in the hallways. 

And then, what if we step off the boat together, and face those fears head on without shaming or blaming. We move into our classrooms and reflect on what is and is not working well, adjust, learn from each other, and believe in the possibility that we can impact and connect with every student who walks through our doors. 

We must also recognize that we will fail, we will stumble, and we will mess up. Fearing the possibility, though, without the courage to do it anyway, will only paralyze us or make us cynical. We tell our students every day that failure is the best learning tool. We have to hold on to the courage to believe that for ourselves as well, and our administration must make room for it to be a cultural norm. 

So, step off the boat. Be courageous, be vulnerable enough to name your fear without othering, shaming, or blaming, and be you–an educator who shows up every day believing in the possibilities for every kid who walks through your doors.