“Knowing what must be done, does away with fear.” Rosa Parks – Fear

Transcript

Introduction: 0:00 

Hello, Steve and Dan Fouts here. We’re veteran educators from Illinois who have  created the Teach Different podcast to model how to have unforgettable  conversations using a super simple 3-step method and quotes from some of the world’s great thinkers. This method works with students of all ages, in all types of classrooms, and can be used in online or face-to-face environments. So, if  you’re a teacher, administrator, social emotional learning specialist, or anybody who loves the art of conversation, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome. 

Dan Fouts: 0:35  

Welcome. We’re very excited this week to have a quote from famous civil rights hero, Rosa Parks, on the theme of fear. Last week, we talked about civic engagement with Anne Frank, and now we’re talking about fear with Rosa Parks. As is customary,  we’re going to follow the Teach Different 3-step method for conversations. We’ll look at the claim, what she’s saying, then we’ll entertain the counterclaim, something against what she said and an equally reasonable way of looking at the world. We’ll build curriculum connections during the conversation to see how this method can be applied in the classroom. Then, we’ll end with an essential question. I’ll say the quote a couple of times at the beginning, and then I’ll repeat it at various times during the podcast. Here’s her quote, “Knowing what must be done, does away with fear.”  “Knowing what must be done, does away with fear.”  What are our thoughts on this? 

Shaun Moriarty: 1:52 – Claim

This is Shaun Moriarty. I’m a grade six English language arts and ancient  civilizations teacher. Prior to that, I taught high school history for several years. Much of that course was with US history two, modern history and a senior elective on the Holocaust. This quote applies quite well with so many different people, whether it’s Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or John Lewis in U.S. history. When you’re talking about the Holocaust, you can apply this quote to Ella Wasel or Oren Frank. I think what we have with this quote, Dan and Steve, is the idea that when you have faith, conviction, and courage, you know that what you’re doing is right, it is what needs to be done. It brings you above that level of fear that might otherwise be inherent, that you might otherwise have to deal with. I think that’s what Rosa Parks is saying here. 

Steve Fouts: 3:03 

This is Steve. I totally agree. I love the way you put it, and you use the word courage. I attribute the definition of courage to Plato. Many people think of courage as a way to overcome your fears, to do whatever and not worry about  circumstances. There are all kinds of definitions out there, but Plato talks about courage being knowledge of what you should and shouldn’t fear. Sean, you made me think of that, because you pointed out that if you have courage, faith, and belief in your convictions, it crowds out the fear or the other things that might distract you. You’re so committed to it, that you can do anything. I love the way you put it. That’s how I took the claim.  Dan, what do you think? 

Dan Fouts: 4:14 

That’s really interesting. Knowledge, to know something, does away with the fear. It makes me think that our fears come to us in very irrational ways, because we don’t have confidence in knowing what we should do. But, once we know what we should do, and there’s certainty, then it’s almost like we allow space for courage to come in to motivate us to act. Thinking of Rosa Parks, this is exactly what she must have been thinking when she refused to give up her seat on the bus. You’d think she would have been afraid, but maybe because there were rumblings of the Civil Rights Movement before this event, that things had bubbled up to a point where she had made a personal commitment to not be dissuaded from acting, and that she knew what she should do. At that moment,  her fear was erased. It’s very inspiring to think of it that way. It makes me wonder how you get to a point where you know enough to do away with your fear. 

Shaun Moriarty: 5:50 

From what I recall, it’s been a few years since I’ve taught the Civil Rights movement, Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery Bus boycott, but she was already affiliated with the NAACP. She was already doing civil rights movement work, but not putting herself out there. She was somebody doing the work behind the scenes. Not long before Rosa Parks’ decision, Claudette Colvin, a younger girl, did the same exact thing. Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one, but she’s the one we know best. Even though I’m sure she knew she was doing the right thing, that this was a change that needed to happen, at the same time she likely had fears. Am I going to lose my job? What kind of things will happen to me socially? Will I be roughed up by the police or other passengers? How is this going to negatively affect me? We don’t really know whether or not those things were running through her mind. She knew this needed to be done, and that provided her with that courage, spirit, and conviction to stick to it. 

Not long before this event, was the Emmett Till incident down in Money, Mississippi. I remember seeing something where she references or cites the Emmett Till case as one of the main catalysts for her. While she was sitting on the bus, she was thinking about Mamie Till in Chicago sitting there without her 13 year old son for no justifiable reason. Emmett Till, a 13-year-old boy whose crime was allegedly whistling, and all the torture he went through, all the horrible things he endured, and that the murderers got away scot-free, without anything. They were put on trial, but it was not a real trial. It was a farce. For her to be thinking about that, which is that worst case scenario, speaks to her conviction, despite the fear that might have planted in her head. 

Steve Fouts: 9:25 

I think that knowing part, it’s righteous. It has a moral component to it. It’s not just an academic exercise. It’s a righting of a wrong. Maybe I’m reading that into this quote, but I think it’s there. Here’s a question I have for both of you, as far as students are concerned, to get them to connect to a quote like this, fear is  probably the best word to focus on. Through sharing their thoughts on fear they might find a way to apply this quote to their life. Do either of you have a thought on what students might bring up if you ask them, what are you afraid of? When have you recently overcome your fears?  Have you ever had someone want to fight you, and you felt like you had to stand up for yourself? Have you ever needed to give a public speech? 

Dan Fouts: 10:40

I’m in the high school environment with juniors and seniors. What you left, Shaun, to go to middle school. If we ask that question, Steve, what are some of your fears that you’ve overcome, because you knew what to do in a situation, they’ll bring up things like, I needed to do well on an exam, so I studied very hard. I knew exactly what I needed to do to study for this exam, and that erased my fear. I had confidence to overcome my fear. I think they might start with those kinds of examples. If they didn’t, I would probably provide that as a safe example to prompt them before asking about more sensitive issues, like when you feel a moral wrong has been done to you. Have you ever been so angry that you were no longer afraid, because you knew you had been wronged?  That would be an interesting angle to take. I don’t know what they would say, but we have to be a little careful. Those are a couple of things that popped into my mind. 

Steve: 11:59 

Yeah. Shaun, what about your crew? What do you think? 

Shaun Moriarty: 12:05 

If we’re talking about this in the context of curricular content, talking about the civil rights movement is one thing, but I think of this right now as more of an SEL theme. This applies to middle school or high school.  If I were going to use this for SEL, I would focus on empathy and standing up for other people. In my experience with high school kids, especially the juniors and seniors, they have a greater sense of themselves, then sixth-grade students. Those high school kids are much more likely to stand up and say or do something when they see a wrong being occurred, whether it’s a student in the hallway picking on somebody, or a teacher who’s bullying a student.  Whatever it might be, I think a 16, 17, or 18 year old kid, at the high school level, is far more likely to do what is right, despite the fear of the social consequences, or the potential for punitive action by a teacher or administrator.  It’s just a much bigger leap of faith, and a lot scarier for middle school kids, even when they know it’s the right thing to do. It’s a much bigger gulf to cross. 

Dan Fouts: 14:08 

They don’t have the level of agency to feel like they can change the world. 

Shaun Moriarty: 14:17 

Absolutely. I had a couple of students last year who were upset about how another teacher had spoken to them and to a classmate. They approached me to talk about it. I told them that I could go to the administration to raise their concerns, but that I’d be doing it as a third source. What I really wanted them to do was to voice their own concerns and stand up for themselves. I tried to encourage them to do that, but they were scared to death to speak with an administrator about their concerns. It took a lot of coaxing and assurance that I had their back. I told them that I’d be happy to go with them, if they really needed me to, but that the impact would be greater if they did it themselves.

Steve Fouts: 15:19 

Great point. Kids react to fear. They know what fear is. I think this quote has a lot of potential. The challenging part of the quote is knowing what needs to be done. I feel like that needs to be flushed out in class, maybe talked about a little bit separately when you’re discussing the claim or the quote. 

When you shift to the counterclaim, and think of another way to look at this quote, maybe knowing what needs to be done causes fear.  That’s one simple way to think of the counterclaim. Could you think of an instance when your knowledge of something causes fear? Sometimes when you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t have any fear, because you’re not thinking of the ramifications. What do you think about a counterclaim?  

Dan Fouts: 16:31 – Counterclaim

Shaun brought up middle schoolers who saw something that was wrong, they knew it wasn’t right, but they had a lot of fear about going to administrators to report it. So, knowledge actually causes fear. They hold the information that they must reveal, and that actually causes this anxiety. 

Steve Fouts: 16:59 

I have something to build on that. I got my teaching experience, Shawn, on the westside of Chicago in an urban environment. For most of my career, there was violence nearby in the Austin neighborhood, and in North Lawndale. I was always dealing with a culture of stressed and traumatized students. When they see something bad happen to somebody, their first reaction is not to tell anyone. They don’t want to be known as a snitch, or as someone who takes the business of the community and puts it out there for everyone else to see, but they know what’s right. They know a wrong has been done, but they are extremely fearful of what will happen if someone saw them watching. Fear is immediate in that context. That’s what I’m used to.

Shaun Moriarty: 18:32

Yeah, absolutely.  My first permanent teaching job was at an alternative high school in Springfield, Massachusetts, an urban center.  Every single kid had a PO (parole officer) and a percentage had ankle bracelets. Most kids had a behavioral  disorder, or had been kicked out of the regular high schools, and this was their last chance. I saw a lot of the same things that you did, Steve, and I was green. I was brand new to teaching, and I remember one student, Kenny, who was the alpha male in this particular group. He was the key to me, the linchpin to everything else, because when you have the leader of the group, you have everyone where you want them. Everybody else falls in line. Kenny would talk about how nobody would ever rat on him. I would talk to him about how people eventually ratted out on Al Capone. If they’re going  to rat on Al Capone, then you’re going to be there at some point, too.  I remember talking to him, and it was much like what you were talking about. The things he would see in his own life made it difficult to teach him. He didn’t see the value. When I asked him, where do you think you’ll be when you’re 25, he just scoffed at me and said, I’m not going to be alive. That was the biggest gut check I’ve ever experienced. In his mind 25 is not an option. Doing what’s right, by himself, or his family, or anybody else, just wasn’t there. Everything is fleeting. It’s moment to moment. 

Steve Fouts: 20:56 

Dan, what do you think about the counterclaim? 

Dan Fouts: 21: 03 

I guess it depends on what you’re planning to do. If we’re talking about this quote in a civil rights protest context with someone like Rosa Parks, who was a victim for so long, she reached a point where she got rid of her fear, because she knew what she did was the right thing. 

Some of the kids in my high school do civic action projects where they get involved in the community.  They pick a social issue that they want to improve, or they put up signs during elections, or something else for the community. Some of the kids choose to attend rallies, to protest something. When they talk about that, they’re afraid. I think they’re afraid, because they don’t have a lot of experience doing it. Maybe they haven’t been victims of what they’re fighting against, so there’s no visceral, emotional investment. Their fear creeps up, even  though they know they should be doing it. 

Steve Fouts: 22:37 

Yeah, they don’t know what must be done. They don’t feel that it’s just. 

Dan Fouts: 22:44 

They might know it academically, but they don’t know it emotionally, because it  hasn’t impacted them. 

I think this conversation could get emotional and kind of moral. I feel like it naturally gravitates to that. It may be because I keep thinking of Rosa Parks. If I didn’t know who said this quote, it’d be a little bit different. Shaun, what do you think? Does this feel like something that would fit with civic engagement? 

Shaun Moriarty: 23:26 

I think it absolutely can. Similar to what Dan was saying, you might know something academically, but you might not feel it in your bones. There’s a disconnect. Whereas, Rosa Parks, and for so many of her generation, it was in their DNA. They felt it. They lived it. 

I recently read a book about John Lewis. I got the sense that while there were moments where fear had subsided for him, he was very aware and had moments of fear. There were moments on the Pettus Bridge when he was convinced that he was going to die. He was afraid of that and what might happen, but he made his peace with it at the same time. The counterclaim might be the idea that knowing what’s right may or may not rid you of fear. You could still do it, even though you’re afraid. I think there’s a John Wayne quote to the effect of, courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyways. I hope I’m attributing that right. You could even think of the counterclaim as not about what you do or don’t know but whether or not you feel fear, and doing it anyway. Did Rosa Parks feel fear? I’m sure there was definitely some fear, but she did it anyway. She saddled up, to use the quote by John Wayne. 

Dan Fouts: 25:48 

Yeah, I love that way of thinking of the counterclaim. Maybe it’s that. To mess with her quote a little bit, knowing what must be done can overcome your fears. It doesn’t mean the fears aren’t there, but that there’s a stronger force causing you to act. That force trumps your fear. That’s a different way of thinking about this. 

Steve Fouts: 26:17 

Really interesting. I don’t know why I thought of this, but I remember an interview with Mike Tyson where he was talking about how important it was to 

fear your opponent. You need to have that in order to be ready. That’s part of the accomplishment, to overcome it or to acknowledge it. Don’t try to push it away, just acknowledge it. Boy, that’s tough. 

Shaun Moriarty: 26:55 

Well, that goes to show you the miraculous tenacity and conviction of Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and all the other people who acted. The conviction they must have had to knowingly march across this bridge, or down this road, into an angry mob with bats, barbed wire, horses, cattle prods, and everything else. They were going to stand their ground. You think it’s a fool’s errand, that it’s a suicide mission. I can’t imagine they didn’t feel fear.  They still had fear, but they were going to stand their ground. That’s so much easier said than done, but boy, does it need to be done. 

Dan Fouts: 28:02 

I am interested in what attitude the kids have towards fear after this conversation. These conversations can take on a life of their own.  We can’t manage them at a certain point. Would they conclude that fear is good or bad, or both? I  think that would be a great thing to leave with them, that fear is a very complex emotion.  We shouldn’t discount it and say it’s a negative. It can be a positive thing.  

Shaun Moriarty: 28:41 

Yeah, I think so.  

Dan Fouts: 28:43

Interesting to see how it would evolve. 

Shaun Moriarty: 28:45 

I think fear is a natural thing. It’s part of our DNA, of our evolution, and in a lot of ways, it’s a good thing. It protects us, at times, from doing some really foolish things. Sometimes fear is great, but at the same time, we don’t want it to be crippling. We don’t want it to mislead us or interfere with things. A discussion I have with my students is to picture the Mass Pike, the turnpike, or another busy road that’s near us, and picture an old person in a wheelchair trying to get across the street, or you see a baby stroller in the middle of the road, and a semi-truck barreling down on it. What do you do?  How many of you are going to jump out to save the day? When in reality that fight or flight kicks in and only a fraction of the kids who said they would save the day would actually do it. It’s not that those students are better, or more valiant, than those who wouldn’t act, but fear can control us. I think it’s our job to understand fear, and how we can make it an asset, rather than an albatross. 

Dan Fouts: 30:40 – Essential Question

That’s a great way to close out this conversation.  That’s fantastic. Well, Shaun, thank you so much for joining us on this episode with Rosa Parks and the theme of fear. You had a very interesting perspective. I think we covered a lot of ground. I’m leaving with excitement that if this conversation were to come into a classroom, it could take a lot of different, very interesting, directions, whether you use it with curriculum, as we talked about, or as you mentioned, Shaun, as an SEL conversation. I see possibilities for both. 

We like to end with an essential question to get you thinking and the students thinking. Here’s one that you could use to wrap up this conversation. What is the best way to overcome our fears?  

Postscript: 31:45 

Thanks, everybody. We hope you’re walking away feeling energized by some great ideas, and are confident that conversations like this are possible. Just a little bit of planning and a three-step method. Make sure you visit our Conversation Library to try out some other conversations we have ready for you. Don’t forget to teach different with conversations and make a difference every day.