Handling Fear

The anticipation of seven days on campus devoted to writing, reading and talking is exhilarating.  At the same time, I find that I am clutching onto a good deal of fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear about my capacity to learn and remember.  Fear that I will not be able to apply my learning and my experience. After reflecting, I realized that I was trying to take the whole seven day institute in one, big gulp even before it began.  So yesterday I brewed myself a cup of tea, sprawled out on the couch at camp, between the sputtering of motor boats and the nearly, eerie screech of loons that ruptured the silence-I read. I read and read.  I sipped and I read.  In The Courage to Teach, Palmer states, "...we cannot see the fear in our students until we see the fear in ourselves."  I advocate for teachers to write.  This exercise deepens our understanding of the process and what our students encounter each day.  This is one of the reasons that I choose to write.