Fear & Cyberbullying

Playing the "fear box" game with 5th hour.

Wow! It is hard to believe we are almost into February. It has been a great year so far in YESS as we have delved into discussions centered around fear. Fear is a strong, primal emotion, and for a few days we simply talked about what we fear and why. We played a game where each scholar had to write one fear they had on a piece of paper. I collected all of the pieces in the "fear box" and we then took turns reading them aloud one by one. If you agreed with the fear, you had to move to the "yes" side of the classroom. If you did not find the fear scary, you moved to the "no" side. This exercise is great because our scholars are able to see that they are not alone in their fears--in fact, many if not most of their peers share their fears: the fear of losing a loved one, the fear of being alone, the fear of not succeeding and graduating, or the fear of being rejected. Once we realize we are not alone in our fears, they start to become less powerful.

In order to understand exactly how one can reject fear, we watched a video that explained how we can name our fears and, in time, reject them. We learned that, just like with any personal issue, the first step is awareness. The next step is positive thinking--much like our ritual, Today I Choose. The final step is needing to take action in opposition of the fear. This is the hardest step for it requires on to embrace the fear and to likely ask for help and support in doing so (often our fears keep us from asking for help when we need it most). It was a challenge for our scholars to name, reject, and take action against one specific fear.

An example of work from the video on Fear.

One great example of this was a mentor who struggled with trust. I encouraged her reach out to the person she trusts most to share three new private things about herself. Funny enough, the person she trusts most is also a mentor who struggles with trust. I had these young ladies share three things with one another in order to deepen and strengthen their relationship. "Miss!" She told me later in the week, "We did it! It was so weird. We felt really nervous. And we cried. But it was the best conversation we have ever had and we feel closer than ever now."

4th hour enjoys some free time on Friday.

We also spent some time discussing cyber-bullying and how fear plays into whether or not we feel empowered to do something about bullying. Stay tuned for more on bullying next week!