Teaching Fears Of New Teachers And Ways To Deal With Them

The psychological phenomenon of fear is prevalent in the contemporary social environment.Although students’ mental health issues,including fear,have received both theoretical and practical attention in education in recent years,teachers’ psychological states,especially new teachers’ fear of teaching,still have not received sufficient attention from theoretical studies.The current educational environment is full of utilitarian mentality and negative messages that constantly impact teachers’ confidence in teaching,and the overcoming of new teachers’ fear of teaching and the cultivation of educational courage have attracted the continued attention of scholars.Clarifying the connotation of fear is the starting point of this study.The meanings,sources,and manifestations of fear in different disciplinary contexts lay the theoretical foundation for defining the connotation of fear in teaching for new teachers.Secondly,new teachers may encounter different types of fears in the process of teaching due to their different upbringing,psychological quality,and characteristics of the subjects they teach.The author rooted in the practical field of elementary school teachers’ education and teaching,penetrated different groups of new teachers in different grades,and studied the performance and characteristics of teachers’ teaching fears of different genders,personalities,and subjects through qualitative research methods such as literature review,case interviews,and primary data collection,and categorized them.When new teachers encounter teaching fears,positive-functioning teaching fears will form a power source for teachers’ professional development,promote reflection and improvement in education and teaching,and form a positive teacher-student interaction in which teaching grows with each other.However,if teaching fears are not well understood and handled properly,they can stall the smooth transition of new teachers from the adaptive role to the skilled development stage,leading to teachers’ negativity toward students,rejection of the subject,and disidentification with themselves.Therefore,overcoming fear of teaching is of great importance for teachers,especially new teachers.Based on the individual cognitive and external environmental characteristics of new elementary school teachers,this study explores the attribution of their different levels and types of teaching fears and proposes relevant countermeasures for individuals to overcome their teaching fears and cultivate educational courage,aiming to promote new teachers’ professional development and practice innovation based on transcending their fears.At the same time,a correct understanding of teaching fears can also eliminate some blind fears,and it is hoped that this study can help more new teachers in the future to pass the teaching adaptation period smoothly and build a pleasant and harmonious teacher-student relationship and educational community.