Practicing Teachers' Experiences

This chapter explores the role of fear in the ways that participants in the Critical English Educators Collaborative navigated their classrooms and curriculum. This discussion begins with a general understanding of fear in modern English language arts (ELA) classrooms and develops some theoretical thinking around navigating emotions as teachers. Specifically, the authors explore some of the following questions: How are ELA teachers processing their fears? When and how do they feel brave? And what does critical pedagogy look like in classrooms permeated by fear? This chapter explores how fear relates to the complex territory of power and privilege that includes teachers, students, school administrators, parents, and community members. The ways in which study participants responded to the fears they experienced in fruitful and not-so-fruitful ways are also analyzed in the context of critical pedagogy. This chapter closes with the invitation for readers to feel their fears without letting them control their pedagogical choices.