Running head: CAUSES AND OUTCOMES OF FEAR IN TEACHER TRAINING

Causes and Outcomes of Fear in Teacher Training Programs and

the Culture of Students as the Enemy
Amy E. Mildebrath
Florida State University

Causes and Outcomes of Fear in Teacher Training Programs and

the Culture of Students as the Enemy

CAUSES AND OUTCOMES OF FEAR IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

While in my secondary education program at Florida State University, I began to notice

something. At first I couldnt quite put my finger on it- it was a subtle undercurrent, a small tidal
shift in how we began thinking and talking about teaching. Its what I have come to call the
culture of students as the enemy. This describes an environment in which subtle anxieties
about teaching manifest themselves as an aggressive attitude towards students and towards
classroom management in general.
The narrative that begins to reveal itself is that the result of a classroom run primarily, or
even partially, by student choice will always result in chaos if not out-right violence. Not only
does this narrative put students below us as aspiring teachers, it also instills fear where there may
not have been any. Student voices are drowned out by fear before we even get into the
classroom.
At its core, the culture of students as the enemy is a culture of fear, and fear is what
prevents good teaching from happening. Underselling students as anything from rascals, all the
way to potentially violent criminals creates an extremely problematic self-fulfilling prophecy.
So the research I did on this was three pronged. I first wanted to establish that America is
situated within a culture of fear. This would explain why a culturally driven institution like
education would have so much trouble escaping it. Then I wanted to reason about why and how
teachers might be afraid of their students. Finally, I wanted to discover the outcomes of that fear.
Various surveys over the last decade have shown that over half of Americans believe that
violent crime is not only prevalent, but on the rise (Larsen, 2008, p. 296). Many people believe
that it is more dangerous to be living now than it ever has been (Grow, 2006, p. 57). This is
despite the fact that there has been a consistent and continued drop in violent crime throughout
the 2000s (Larsen, 2008, p.269). Yet people still believe in this lack of security because it is

CAUSES AND OUTCOMES OF FEAR IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

profitable for organizations and government bodies to exploit these fears. This ties brilliantly into
something I found over and over again in my research, which is that fear is a socially constructed
illusion and is very rarely representative of real threats (Agne, 1996, p. 131; Larsen, 2008, p.
267). We must remember this going forward because it is easy to pass off our own fears as
rational responses to the world around us. We must keep in mind that fear is wrong more often
than not, and that bodies of knowledge, in this case teacher training programs, produce and
normalize certain ways of seeing and acting in the world that are not necessarily accurate or
beneficial (Larsen, 2008, p. 268).
So if we reasonably assume that education cannot escape the general trends of culture as
a whole, then the next question we must ask ourselves is what are teachers afraid of? More
specifically, what about students makes teachers afraid? At the forefront of this is the fact that in
a regular classroom setting, students will always outnumber the teacher. Students can use this
game of numbers to their advantage (Pickhardt, 1978, p.107). This also means that while a
student needs only to focus on their teacher as a target, on average a teacher will be juggling 2030 students at any given time. It is in this dynamic that we see how fear enters the classroomthrough a teachers need to assert control over their students, and through a students need to assert
control over their environment (Pickhardt, 1978, p. 108; Palmer, 2007, p. 41). This is what fear
boils down to and often manifests itself as- a push for control no matter the consequences
(Bender-Slack, 2010, p. 195).
The consequences of this push for control are often disastrous. The culture of fear in
America is driven largely by fear of the other, and the classroom is no exception (Palmer, 2007,
p. 38). Rates of suspension, seclusion, and expulsion of students of color, students with
disabilities, and English Language learners are disproportionately and unreasonably high. In

CAUSES AND OUTCOMES OF FEAR IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

Florida alone, African American male students account for 26% of out of school suspensions,
while white male students account for only 12%. For female students, African American girls
account for 14% of out of school suspensions, while white girls account for only 4% (U.S.
Department of Education, 2014, p. 12). Zero tolerance policies, predicated on the perception that
schools are dangerous and youth crime is on the rise, neither of which is true, have become
almost universal. Leon County School Board Student Conduct/ Discipline Guide stipulates one
of these policies (Leon County School Board, 2013, p. 8).
Policing students is a common outcome of a fear based culture, but is practically never
effective (Barnwell, 2013). What this looks like in the classroom environment is a dictatorial
classroom management style.
Now I want to make it clear that the FSU teacher-training program steers us away from
this style of classroom management and provides us with a variety of alternatives. What Im
saying is a culture of fear will drive people to act in a fearful way and acting in a fearful way
means pulling into yourself and acting only on your own wants and needs (Grow, 2006, p. 60).
This is the hallmark of a bad teacher.
So what do we do? We must begin by becoming reflective teachers who look at students,
especially students who are very different from ourselves, as opportunities to become better
teachers and people who understand a world-view much bigger than our own (Conway, MicheelHays & Micheel-Hays, 2005, p. 73). We must become selfless teachers who emulate compassion
and not fear, who decide that their fears are not rational or relevant to their teaching style, and
who can simultaneously embrace them as parts of the human condition, and let them go in order
to become better educators.

CAUSES AND OUTCOMES OF FEAR IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

It is only through this process that we can truly begin to eradicate the culture of students
as the enemy.

References
Agne, K. (1996). Fear: The teachers teacher. Educational Horizons 74(3), 130-133.

CAUSES AND OUTCOMES OF FEAR IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

Barnwell, P. (2013). Reducing student-behavior problems: Notes from a high school teacher.
Education Week Teacher. Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/10/14/cm_barnwell.html
Bender-Slack, D. (2010). Texts, talk and fear? English language arts teachers negotiate social
justice teaching. English Education 42(2), 181-203.
Conway, C., Micheel-Mays, C., & Micheel-Mays, L. (2005). A narrative study of student
teaching and the first year of teaching: Common issues and struggles. Bulletin of the
Council for Research In Music 165, 65-77.
Grow, L. M. (2006). Bound in saucy doubts and fears: Examining Americas culture of fear.
The English Journal 96(2), 57-61.
Larsen, M. A. (2008). North American insecurities, fears and anxieties: Educational implications.
Comparative Education 44(3), 265-278.
Leon County School Board. (2013). Student Conduct/ Discipline. (F.S. 1006.07, 1006.13).
Tallahassee, FL.
Palmer, P. (2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teachers life. 10th
anniversary edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Pickhardt, C.E. (1978). Fear in schools: How students make teachers afraid. Educational
Leadership, 107-112.
U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. (2014). Civil Rights Data Collection:
Data Snapshot (School Discipline). (Issue Brief No. 1). Washington, D.C.: Department of
Education building.