The movie, Snakes on a Plane was popular, largely because it combined common phobias or fears [fear of flying (aviophobia) + fear of snakes (ophidiophobia)]. Given the pervasiveness of another fear, the producers may have missed a box office bet when they didn’t name the movie: Public Speaking to Snakes on a Plane. (Ref: joyfulpublicspeaking.blogspot.com) While the fear of public speaking (glossophobia) is perhaps the most commonly known and experienced fear of those that fall into a category we might call ‘fears of public failure,’ it is by no means the only such fear...

There is also atychiphobia (fear of failure), scriptophobia (fear of writing in public), and gelotophobia (fear of being laughed at), among many others. What these phobias have in common is that they constrain one’s willingness to perform before an audience, such as is necessary when giving a speech, performing a talent, presenting a paper, displaying art, or even learning in front of others. These are all activities and abilities that are required, to varying degrees, for educational and professional success.

We have a very real cultural tension with respect to private versus public performance. For millennia, we have assumed that public speaking is an important aspect of a good education. Whether we call it the study of rhetoric, oration, forensic debate, or the more modern 'public speaking,' we have recognized the importance of teaching individuals to engage successfully with others in contexts beyond one-on-one (i.e., publicly). Simultaneous, however, is the often unspoken but still strong injunction against sharing publicly until those skills have been relentlessly and successfully honed. The Ancient Greeks (who valued debate and oration) referred to those who did not speak Greek in an educated way as barbaroi — barbarians. The Pythagoreans (somewhat mystical Greek mathematicians) forbade their students to speak at all for the first few years of their training. This injunction against speaking publicly is still with us. As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." What this boils down to is a cultural assumption that failure should be private while success should be public.

In the 20th century, our culture has undergone a tremendous shift in its consideration of private/public with the emergence and ongoing evolution of mass media. The majority of public performances with which our students are familiar are those on television. And while older viewers may prefer highly scripted or informational shows (think The History Channel), our students, demographically speaking, do not.

Remember The Gong Show? Candid Camera? MTV's The Real World? America's Funniest Home Videos? Big Brother? Those shows were only the beginning of our current trend toward the most popular and often-watched kinds of public performance. 'Reality TV' now makes up a majority of current programming in the United States (and Europe). In each of these reality shows, the usually private or professional lives and performances of individuals are made public, expressly for the entertainment of viewers. The proliferation of web cams, high-speed internet and sites like YouTube have made it possible for anyone to turn a private performance (their own or another's) into a public one. The new generation of shows such as The Apprentice, American Idol, and America's Got Talent have upped the ante considerably in their focus on and handling of what might be best termed 'vocational or talent performances.' In these shows, it is not the day-to-day activities that are made public, but intentional performances by those who put themselves forward in order to display their abilities in front of an audience.

While everyone loves a Susan Boyle success story, the winner/loser risk and dynamics are made so very melodramatic; there is rarely a middle ground between, "You're fired!" and "America's sweetheart." This is arguably due to the fact that these are entertainment programs; in the world of entertainment television, every moment must be imbued with maximum emotional impact and/or drama. Anything else simply won't appeal to an audience looking to be entertained.

It makes sense, then, that fears of public performance are often so much greater than the actual risk that may be present...that "maximum emotional impact or drama" is subconsciously applied to even a small public performance in front of a few classmates and instructor. Students' thoughts about their own performance are weighted with their perceptions about the performances of others. To watch an otherwise private person publicly ridiculed for a less-than-stellar performance and be entertained by it has a profound impact on one's willingness to follow that performance, regardless of context or audience. There are very good reasons that these shows are sometimes collectively referred to as 'Humiliation TV.' And remember, because our base cultural assumption is that failure should be private, there is a forbidden and voyeuristic thrill in watching failure happen publicly. We are culturally conditioned to find it shamefully compelling.

Additionally, there is the perceived pressure to be stellar — to be a star performer, worthy of an unrealistic level of praise and acclaim. Against what scale is that performance measured? Again, our students have a largely unrealistic and unconscious frame of reference for what constitutes a strong performance. Instead of useful and measurable criteria such as, Have I communicated my points to my audience in such a way that they understand what I've said?, the gut-level concern is, Will people laugh at me the way I laughed at _____? Will they say the same cruel things that some of the judges or Donald Trump or the anonymous comments on the YouTube site said? Our deepest cultural roots tell us that we should remain silent and alone, practicing our skills in front of a mirror until our performance has been perfected. 

Why does this matter, when we're talking about education and the transformation of education? Because this is the culture that is 'normal' for a majority of our students. If we understand that culture and its signals, we are better able to appreciate the kind of perceptions and assumptions we're dealing with — in ourselves as well as our students — as we strive to help them succeed. Helping students to differentiate between the cultural signals they are given outside of the classroom and the performance requirements and criteria inside the classroom is a sincere challenge for any educator committed to helping his or her students overcome their fear-based unwillingness to perform in front of or with others.

During Learning to Learn Camps (LLC), students are placed in situations that require them to perform publicly. They engage in team problem solving, participate in writing, speech, and art contests, and are strongly encouraged to be part of the LLC talent show. What emerges, time and time again, is that student anxiety and fear is at its peak going into Friday’s set of public performances. What also becomes obvious is that when those performances are over, students who were the most fearful experience an incredible sense of empowerment and a tremendous boost to their self confidence. They have faced down and survived some of their worst fears. At the very least, they have begun to master social and affective learning skills without which their learning and lives would be less rich and more solitary. While it is possible to find a niche in life that doesn’t require ever risking public failure, such a life is necessarily cut off from a wealth of opportunities for engagement and fulfillment. It can also be a life where growth is constrained, a priori.

Given the pervasive nature of these ‘fears of public failure’ and the very high educational and professional price that must be paid by those who are unwilling to face and overcome them, the question is: What are we, as educators, willing to do in our classrooms to give students the opportunity to move from ‘unwilling to risk public failure’ to ‘willing to speak, write, perform, and share with and in front of others?’ Do we give students enough opportunities to learn through experimentation and practice? To become, if not absolutely comfortable with something like sharing an oral report, at least able to accommodate, manage, and cope successfully with such tasks?