“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood” Marie Curie-Overcoming Fear Through Understanding and Action

Transcript

Dan Fouts  00:05

All right, welcome everybody to the Teach Different podcast. We have a great quote tonight. Actually, I think Steve, this is the second quote from Marie Curie, if I’m pronouncing her name right, physicist, chemist in the early 1900s winner of a Nobel Prize in 1903 and 1911 and she has a very interesting quote about fear and knowledge and how to conquer your fears, which we’re going to get to in a minute. Very excited about this particular quote. I think the first one we had with Marie Curie was on perfection if anybody wants to look that up in the in the library. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Lauren, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We’re really excited to have you with us.

Lauren Brown  02:25

 Thank you so much, Dan and Steve, great to meet you. Dan. We’ve met before. So I’m Lauren Brown. I am a seventh-grade US History teacher. Also have taught eighth grade, ninth grade, never 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade, I had a bunch of years in high school, so and also at the university level, supervising student teachers and teaching the methods class for new social studies teachers. So I come at this from the perspective both as a classroom teacher and as someone who teaches other teachers, and I’m currently taking a year’s leave from the classroom right now to explore some of my other interests in education, particularly, I’m interested in K through five literacy and social the role that social studies education plays in that as well as better training for teachers and how to support Teachers in the profession, which we all know has been under a lot of stress since covid. So that’s where I’m coming at this from. So you want me to just dive into the claim here and what I understand? Okay, so I took it to mean that Well, first I was sort of wondering, like, what is fear and what is understanding? And what I came up with is that understanding is learning about something, and basically it’s education. And so I would make the claim, say that the claim is about helping us overcome our fears through education, through learning. And I know you picked this for me, thinking about how I’m starting to develop, you know, these new interests in education and potentially going off in a different direction in my career. But as a history teacher, I will brought it straight back to the classroom, and what it made me think of immediately is all these fears that we’re dealing with in our lives right now. You know, starting from the pandemic, obviously, that was a major fear that happened very quickly, and we all had to learn to teach in a whole new way, while we’re also afraid of catching the disease, but I’m thinking also about the problems in our democracy this upcoming election, AI global warming and the collapse of democracy around the world, not just in the United States. So that’s what came to me, is all of these fears and our. Job as social studies teachers to educate our students about this, because this is the world they’re inheriting, and it’s a kind of scary place, I think, right now.

Steve Fouts  05:09

And if you take the advice of the quote in the way that you read it, 

Dan Fouts  05:14

Read it again, Steve! Just  

Steve Fouts  05:15

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood” If we look at all of those troubling things, Lauren, that you pointed out, understanding, you know, climate crisis, understanding polarization, understanding the effects of the pandemic, just by going through that process of understanding would take away our fear of it, is what this is claiming, right? I mean, just it education, like you’re saying, the more you know, the less emotional in a way you are about it, the more you see logic, right? You might look at like the Venezuelan issue with their government, and you might say, Well, I’ve been following Venezuelan politics for 20 years, and I knew exactly what was going to happen here. And here’s what I know about things, and I know it won’t last forever. Perhaps you know that the good side is going to win, whatever that means. But again, it’s knowledge that’s feeding that, and it’s taking away the mystique about it because we know more. I’m going with the claim,

Lauren Brown  06:33

Yeah, I love that. I love how you brought up emotion because I think emotions are really important. And as an educator who is very passionate, and often very emotional about the things they teach. I think it’s important to and students, young people. You know, teenagers can be very passionate, very emotional, and so helping them develop the tools to take a step back and look at things, not just emotionally, but also logically, I think is really important. So I love that you brought that up.

Dan Fouts  07:06

 Yeah, I and that, just to take the baton from from that remark, Lauren, the anxieties and fears that that kids have, I’m not going to do well on this next assessment. I can’t be in an AP class, or everyone is more intelligent than I am. If we can somehow combat that with an understanding where we as teachers, maybe can step in and say, you know, that comment you made in the discussion was really, really insightful, and and so you’re, we’re helping them understand that they are not misplaced, that they should be where they are, and that they can put their fears aside and develop confidence in its absence through understanding. So I’m, I’m I’m straight. I mean, I literally left a classroom an hour ago. So I’m thinking about being with young people and how much you do have to deal with their emotions, fear being one of them, and use logic and rational thinking to help balance them. So anyway.

Lauren Brown  08:11

You know, I want to know that road. Yeah, I’d like to build on that. I think, you know, I came to this first from the perspective of, you know, content and history and what goes on in social studies classrooms. But what you just reminded me of is that important social-emotional learning piece, which I know you guys are working on with, you know, and I think that that’s a really important job of the teacher too. You know, you’re afraid of this upcoming paper or this upcoming test or quiz, let me explain to you what it’s going to be on, how you can study. And, you know, I know one of the things I’ve done a lot in classroom is help kids know how to learn how to study because they often don’t know how to do that. And parents, and, you know, sending emails home to the parents of how you can help your kids, and I think that they get really scared sometimes of a class, and that paralyzes them. And the more we can do to help explain to them, you know, what the processes might be and what things are going to be look like, the more we can take away those fears.

Steve Fouts  09:20

I’ll just add in anxiety in general, how obstructive it is to learning if it’s not addressed. Lauren, correct me, if I’m wrong, do you teach in Oak Park? Did I get that right? I taught at the level of Steve. Where’s Oak Park? Yeah, Oak Park is it’s really a western suburb of Chicago. It’s where Ernest Hemingway used to live. And I bring it up because I used to teach at Austin High School, Lauren, and Douglas High School, which is extremely close. To Oak Park, but it’s, I guess you could say, on the other side, right where there’s underserved communities of that I worked with most of my career, and I bring it up because anxiety, mental health, and the different challenges that my kids were always going through just through their day to day, par for the course, wake up in the morning, get to school safely, Get home safely. Those were always issues with them, and that was such a challenge because it did make teaching difficult and understanding difficult, and it would have been great to say a quote like this to them. And I don’t want to necessarily get into the counterclaim yet, but I know how they would react to this. And I do we get into the counterclaim? 

Lauren Brown  10:59

No, not yet. Not yet. 

Steve Fouts  11:01

But anyway, I just bring up the the challenge of teaching and understanding and education, if you don’t deal with the fears and the anxieties,

Lauren Brown  11:13

Well, what you just reminded you of now you’re bringing me back to content because I’m thinking about like, fear of, you know the the other, and I’m putting other in quotation marks, and how much you know, in our nation’s history and throughout the world, there has been this fear of people who are racially different, culturally different religions, and you know, how we get to know people of other communities? You know, there’s been an interesting relationship between Oak Park and the Austin community, and how can we get over our fears of differences, to be embracing and welcoming of others and understanding where they’re coming from, and recognizing our common humanity, and then we don’t have to be so fearful.

Dan Fouts  11:59

That’s fantastic. 

Steve Fouts  12:01

There’s a long way, 

Dan Fouts  12:02

I’m just never thinking about this on that, that interpersonal level with people of different ethnicities, religions, and races. This can be an incredibly powerful way of navigating the world. Nothing in life is to be feared, only to be understood. And I think it is absolutely true that the more you understand people who are different and really get to know people, it becomes so much harder to dislike them if you truly invest the work. And my gosh, we need that so much in our society.

Lauren Brown  12:43

Oh, yeah.

Steve Fouts  12:45

Can I share the most obvious example of that with immigration? If you developed friends that had come from other countries, you would view immigration in a completely different light than people who don’t know anyone who’s come here from another country and may fear just the idea that someone’s coming that isn’t supposed to be here. But if you have people, you know you’re not thinking of it that way, you understand why they came, their situation, why life is better here, why they would never risk it, and why they want to be productive and work and hopefully become a citizen someday, you just see it through their eyes, the empathy, yeah, for sure.

Lauren Brown  13:37

I’m thinking about going back to like when I was initially playing around with the quote and thinking about what we mean by fear, and what we mean by understanding and thinking about fear as something that’s paralyzing, and how, and when. And I guess this goes back to what you’re saying about kids, and you know, if they’re fearful, it’s hard to, you know, teach them anything about us, history or any other class that we’re teaching. They’re too busy, you know, being fearful. So the ways in which we give kids knowledge as tools to overcome that of being paralyzed and being feeling like there’s nothing you can do to change anything. And so, like, one of the first thoughts I thought about, too, was just the, you know, FDR, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and the Great Depression, and how his response to it was just action, which then reminded me of, you know, Kamala Harris’s speech at the DNC and how she’s talking about her mom and her she’s saying, don’t just complain about something, do something. And so then I’m thinking about education and knowledge, and maybe now we’re starting to get into the counterclaim. But at what point are we talking about? Understanding and what part does understanding lead to action?

Steve Fouts  15:08

That’s a layer, right? 

Dan Fouts  15:10

Interesting? If I’m understanding you, right, Lauren, you’re saying understanding maybe only goes too far, so far. I should I’m sorry, yeah, only goes so far. There has to be action and solution-oriented thinking that accompanies understanding to really deal with the fear. Is that kind of what you’re saying?

Lauren Brown  15:35

Because sometimes the more we know about things, the scarier we can find it. I mean, you know, some of my students come to me not really knowing much about anything. I mean, I’m struck by how already students you know that I had last year in seventh grade, January 6, 2021, isn’t something that they think about. Now, I was teaching eighth graders in 2021 and we immediately debriefed about it, and they were terrified, whereas, you know, the kids that I have now don’t they were too little, so they were shielded from from that. And one of the things I think about a lot, and I mentioned this with to parents at back-to-school night, is how the job of a teacher and a parent involves sort of peeling that onion. And, you know, we get teary when we’re peeling an onion. We’re taking off the layers. And part of growing up is becoming exposed to the ugliness in the world. So how do we, you know, the question that I’ve been wrestling with, you know, for a while now, even before covid is, you know, how do we teach about some of these issues without crushing students’ souls? At what point is teachers maybe there’s some things they’re really not ready for, and it becomes maybe more of an issue with middle schoolers than high school. And obviously, the older kids get, the less you need to shield them. But how do you expose them to the world without overdoing it?

Steve Fouts  17:11

How do you let on that there may be some things that you should fear, and that’s okay because then you can be vigilant, which is different than having it necessarily go to anxiety or a depression or, you know, a withdrawal? Sometimes having something that you’re seeing could be a problem gets your spidey senses going, and it gets you more alert. And, you know, I don’t know, maybe that’s something that can also be education on some level, understanding something. It’s a fine line, though, because a lot of fears become irrational, right? It’s maybe there are some healthy fears. Maybe an essential question is, what kind of fears are healthy, and what kinds of fears are debilitating?

Lauren Brown  18:12

I like that, and when I was starting, maybe we’re starting to get into that counterclaim. I hear it, yeah, because I had scribbled down that, you know, some fears are irrational, so maybe learning about them won’t help. But on the other hand, maybe if we understand the source of those irrational fears, we can, you know, help and do something about it.

Dan Fouts  18:35

And some fears are irrational, but also some fears are rational in the sense that they align with reality. I’m thinking of a strange example, but I’m hoping this might work. Just popped into my head. I have several kids on the football team, and they’re talking about a game that’s coming up against a team that is very, very intimidating, and they were talking about the team as it as fearing that team. Their fear was, it seemed to be more rational in that they were using the fear of the team as an inspiration behind preparing more for the game, and so it wasn’t something that needed to be understood to erase it. It was more something that was actually a productive animating force within them that was making them better prepared,

Steve Fouts  19:44

 Because they weren’t overconfident. Mike Tyson. I heard him say this once, Mike Tyson, the famous Mike Tyson. He said, I never go into a ring, not terrified. I said he was terrified of almost all of his opponents, and that’s what he had to stay like to be effective.

Lauren Brown  20:11

Yeah, well, fear can be a motivator. I mean, fear can be I mean, maybe here’s an interesting, essential question. You know, fear can be both paralyzing and motivating, depending on what it is. Sometimes it keeps us from action and sometimes it motivates us.

Dan Fouts  20:30

So then maybe a question is, what it well, maybe Did someone ask this, what is the A healthy fear and an unhealthy fear? That’s kind of what we were going at before.

Lauren Brown  20:41

Is it a healthy fear? What is an unhealthy fear? Or, when is fear motivating? When is fear paralyzing?

Steve Fouts  20:47

And I’m just thinking of an application where fear is not helpful when you’re in some type of, I guess, relationship with someone. It could be any type of relationship, and maybe you’re fearing that this person might do something or leave you or something that you don’t see happening, but you know, it could always happen, and it’s going to start you thinking, and acting in a defensive way because you want to protect yourself from what might happen. There’s an example of, I think I’m back to the claim, yeah, that’s understanding why you’re thinking that way can probably go a long way into not self-sabotaging yourself and not overreacting to something. So I’m back to the claim.

Lauren Brown  21:54

Can we go back thinking about going back to the claim? Can we go back to like, what we mean by understanding and Dan, I think it was you that said something about understanding as only, like a first step. So maybe like, what’s the relationship between understanding and action?

Dan Fouts  22:24

Yeah, because,

Steve Fouts  22:25

 It’s really just question!

Dan Fouts  22:26

 If it just stays in understanding, and there’s no action that you take, you’re not going to be successful in erasing the fear. If that’s your ultimate goal, you can sit back and say, Oh, I understand why I’m having these anxious thoughts, but if you don’t use action in addition, you won’t conquer it.

Steve Fouts  22:57

But that’s not always true, is it? I’m thinking of an example of, let’s just say, fearing death, which is a natural fear. I think, understanding that so many people have come before you, so many people are going to come after you, we all kind of have the same fate can reduce your anxiety and fear. Okay, however, public speaking, is some people’s greater it’s a greater fear of public speaking. People have a greater fear of public speaking than they do of death. That may be one that requires action. If you want to get rid of your fear, you have to do more than just understand. You need to get out there and speak. I’m trying to go with your original point, Dan, that that seems like action is important.

Lauren Brown  24:02

I want to, can we play with that for a minute? Because now I’m thinking how, you know, we tend to always talk a lot in education about how we want our students actively doing things and preparing them for life outside the classroom. And I think. And while I think that those things are deeply important, I also think they tend to cut at the importance of knowledge and wisdom, not necessarily just knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But did some things happen more slowly, and so we do as teachers, you know? I mean, I think the biggest question that is incumbent upon us as teachers to answer for our students is the one that they have every day when they walk into our rooms, right? Like, why do we have to know this stuff? And so I try to address that question. Action as often as I can, I think. And of course, I’m, you know, biased. I’m a history teacher. Of course, I think history is important, and you know, it helps us to understand our presence and where we are in the world. And sometimes it takes a long time before you start to see what action you can do about that. So sometimes it really is just about understanding and recognizing the past so you have a deeper appreciation for what’s going on in the present. Like, you know. I mean, we always talk, for example, about, like, the failures of Vietnam. We talk about the failures of the god the beginning of, you know, World War Two, and Chamberlain, and somebody helped me out here and how we just like

Dan Fouts  25:45

The Munich Conference.

Lauren Brown  25:47

The Munich Conference, yeah. And capitulating to Hitler and how you have to take a firm line. And I was reading once something about the Vietnam War and talking about the policy of appeasement. That’s what I was thinking of. And Lyndon B Johnson, and how Lyndon B Johnson knew his history. He knew about how the policy of appeasement failed us in World War Two and letting into Hitler so in Vietnam, he’s doubling down on we can’t give in to these communist leaders. But it was a different situation. So sometimes, and now I think I’m taking a think of a different direction that understanding means, sometimes recognizing when the past is similar and when it’s not, and how complicated it can be.

Steve Fouts  26:39

So true if understanding take has a lot of layers, you have to be have discernment and wisdom if you’re gonna, you know, learn from a fear and feel like you have a next step that you’re sure of that’s for sure.

Lauren Brown  26:57

Yeah, and I, you know, I was, I’ve been really fascinated with the ways in which pundits have talked about Hillary and how Hillary Clinton herself talks about how she’d lost the election in 2016 and how complicated it is with you know, everything from you know, the role of Third parties, Jill Stein her Hillary Clinton’s line about deplorables, the emails her identity as a woman failing to, you know, thinking that she had Wisconsin and Michigan locked up. And there’s just so many different layers. And so that’s the other thing, I guess, about going back to the quotation, is understanding there’s lots of whether talking about a historical event or something in politics or again, something like global warming, those are complex things that require many, many layers to deeply understand them.

Steve Fouts  27:59

It’s easier to fear them.

Dan Fouts  28:04

Yeah, because understanding is, is takes a commitment and an energy, and, you know, a work ethic in and of itself, to understand something, you know we’ve talked which is more action-oriented. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the only kind of work. I mean, there’s mental work that we have to encourage and inspire kids to do. I really like that though, that the understanding is something that sometimes requires action to overcome the fear, and then sometimes the understanding itself can eradicate the fear. Back to the claim here, and to know which one makes the most sense in any given situation is really the issue here, the crux of this.

Lauren Brown  29:05

I’m sure you have some good quotations somewhere in your archives about action versus thinking.

Dan Fouts  29:15

We have one of Gosh now, now you Laura, and I have to come up with this. It’s something that the true purpose of education is not knowledge but action, something like that. Or I might have, I might have messed that one up, but yep, so we address this. 

Lauren Brown  29:34

I think sometimes the purpose of education is action, but sometimes I think the purpose of education is knowledge. And we devalue that. I think sometimes piety.

Steve Fouts  29:49

And as you’re saying, Lauren, there are different stages for both. It can be one at that moment, the knowledge is important, and then the action can come later. Where, when life experiences set in, you have the knowledge base and you know how to act, you know, but it doesn’t happen overnight, everything all at once. 

Dan Fouts  30:12

Maturity dependent. You know, we’re working with middle and high school kids. They’re a lot of them are not ready for action in the way in which we might, as adults want them to act, and so the understanding might have to come first.

Lauren Brown  30:30

Sometimes students are very quick to want to act without really thinking through. Is this the best best method? Like, let’s have a protest, let’s do this. And maybe that’s not the best method for what it is that they’re concerned about.

Dan Fouts  30:45

But then now you got me thinking, Lauren about something like, if we want to help young people understand the importance and value of volunteering and see they’re fearful of for whatever reason of doing that, to me, that’s a situation where doing it creates the understanding that you can’t sit around and think about, you know, if I went to this soup kitchen, what would that make someone? No, just have someone take you there. See the smiling faces, see the energy, and then from that develop the understanding. So it’s again, it’s whatever order.

Lauren Brown  31:27

Yes, you’re right. Sometimes you really have to just throw yourself and go out there and have some trust about the wisdom and knowledge that you’ve accumulated at this point in your life, whether you’re 13, 17, 21 or, you know, 50 something, you know, it doesn’t at a certain point, you’re right. I think you do have to just go out there and conquer fears through action, you know. So I guess going back to that, how do you know when you’ve understood enough?

Steve Fouts  32:00

Good, good. At what point are you ready to for the action? I like it. I mean, we’re we’re having a very educator discussion here. I love it. And I know that some people, when they read this quote, they would immediately go to the counterclaim and say, when that grizzly bear is charging me, I’m not interested in understanding why I am going to go with the fear of that moment which is going to create action, I guess so you’re!

Lauren Brown  32:39

Cracking me up here, because I remember reading something there’s like, two different kinds of bears, not grizzly bears, but one of them you’re supposed to play dead, or might have been like wild cats. With one of them, you’re supposed to play dead, and with the other one you’re supposed to are, you know, go out there and just be really aggressive, and then they’ll get scared. And I just feel like if I ran into one of those creatures, I would be so scared, I wouldn’t know which one is which.

Steve Fouts  33:06

Need to understand that one real quickly, Lauren, and get the right bear.

Lauren Brown  33:13

Well, and now I’m thinking about parenthood too because I remember as a new parent, my oldest is coming up on 25 years old, but I remember when he was first born, and like most newborns, did not sleep through the night. And as an educator, my first thing when I’m trying to tackle some new problem is education. So like, read a book, figure it out, and I would read some voices from pediatricians and things that said, the best way to get your kids to sleep through the night is let them cry it out. Because if you don’t, they’re going to always be weak human beings. They’ll never develop that toughness, you know, and you got to just let them cry it out. And then I read other people who said, Oh no, you can’t let them cry it out, or they’ll never learn to trust in relationships. They’ll never trust you, and you have to go comfort them. So I’m reading these two things they have completed. They’re both from experts in child raising, and they’re saying exactly the opposite things, with potentially dire consequences for my noble. So at a certain point, you just have to act and go through your gut. You know, I couldn’t stand it when he cried. I picked him up.

Dan Fouts  34:31

That’s hilarious. 

Steve Fouts  34:33

Those both seem so rational like I was believing both of those, like I was on board, yep. What do you do? Well,

Lauren Brown  34:43

I picked him up, and, you know, he went off to school in England and managed to be very, you know, and is in a relationship, and he’s been doing just fine,

Steve Fouts  34:54

 No abandonment issues. That’s a good thing. 

Lauren Brown  34:56

No abandonment issues and didn’t feel. And by letting out, I read, by picking him up, I didn’t he didn’t lose the ability to do things for himself.

Steve Fouts  35:08

Beautiful,

Dan Fouts  35:11

Great. I’m another angle on this. Is someone might read this? Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. If you have a health condition, that is just scary. That’s another situation where you might look at this and say, No, some things in life are to be feared. I could do all the understanding possible about this certain condition that I have, but I’m still afraid. And so in that in those areas of life, you know, it would, it would make sense to think that way. Well, we did a lot of essential questions during this. I mean, we got a ton of them that we can definitely pick from. So, yeah. Marie Curie, nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. We work the claim and the counterclaim. I thought we brought in some good personal experiences, infused a little humor in this, and really left, hopefully, everybody with some things to think about. Of using this quote with your if you’re a teacher, use it with your students. Students would totally get into this one. I really believe they could. They could connect on a personal level. But beyond that, I think it’s applicable to all audiences because there’s never a point in our life when we don’t have fear, right Lauren?

Lauren Brown  36:39

Absolutely and just as the teacher and me, I would also add, I think this would be great for if you’re starting a unit on the Great Depression. I think it’s great for doing something with the upcoming election. I think it’s great for science teachers teaching about global warming, AI, and I think for the American Revolution, in the Constitution, that sort of fear of starting a new. So I think there’s lots of good units in social studies classes and elsewhere to use it. Plus, as we talked about, social-emotional learning.

Dan Fouts  37:15

Yes, lots of curriculum connections.

Steve Fouts  37:18

That’s great. Great themes.

Dan Fouts  37:21

Well, Lauren, this has been, an absolute pleasure. It’s been nice to, you know, getting to know you. And you know, you visited my class and saw, saw the method in action, that was awesome. And looking forward to just keep, you know, working with you and picking your brain and learning this, this method together and just fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on.

Lauren Brown  37:45

Thank you so much for having me. Great to meet you, Steve, the other partner in crime here, likewise.

Dan Fouts  37:51

Take care. All right. Take care.