The thing I remember the most about being in middle school was the constant threat and dread of looking stupid. Not actually doing something stupid, but the fear that I might be perceived as lame. It could have been saying the wrong thing in front of a class, or telling an unfunny joke at lunch, maybe it was striking out in PE or just wearing the wrong shoes or having an unpopular haircut.

Everyday was a battle to be myself and fit in at the same time. And on any given day this tension made me feel powerless and small.

As a middle school teacher, even while I try to be sensitive to the anxiety of many of the students in my care, the need to deliver my curriculum or “get on” with my class overshadows their need for me to take it easy. As teachers, how often do we take for granted the level of risk we are asking kids to take by just answering a question or performing some task we designed.

Work with a partner. Share your ideas. Read your poetry out loud. Present in an assembly.

Of course, I know that kids need safe supportive environments to take risks and sometimes fail, and it is our job to make sure that they have these opportunities, so I am not saying that we need to shelter kids and constantly protect them. My middle school years helped me find the resilience I needed to become confident and become the man I am today.

What I am proposing is that kids at that age need role models and mentors who are willing to make themselves vulnerable. They need teachers who are not afraid to look stupid. They need teachers who can admit that learning can be terrifying and that if you truly want to learn, you must put yourself out there and overcome the fear of judgement. I think it’s important for kids to see that adults still harbour fear and anxiety when it comes to learning publicly.

As adults we have the luxury to do most of our new learning in isolation or in small groups of other adults. We rarely take a chance and learn with or in front of kids.

With the inspiration from my friend and former principal Mike Johnston, who learns something new every year in front if his kids, me and my G8 team changed our culture today. I thought about the scariest most embarrassing thing I could think of and proposed to the team that we take a few assemblies this year to learn how to do a choreographed Salsa dance routine. Did I mentioned that I hate dancing?

One of our teachers is a semi-pro dancer and she has agreed to teach us a routine by year’s end. Today during assembly in front of 198 kids, we learned the first 8-count steps.

I was terrible. It was hard. I was embarrassed and wished I wasn’t doing it. I made a joke of my inability to master even the simplest first steps and wanted to stop and call the whole thing off. I felt like a middle school student and learning was not fun. It was another time that I felt I would be judged and made fun. So it was a success. I had achieved maximum empathy.

In a minute, when I am done writing and sharing this post, I will practice the few steps again, because I have to take the same advice I give my students and my own kids- if you want to learn you have to practice and forego the fear and embarrassment of failure. Little did I know that this actually gets harder the older you get.

I want to end with a big thank you to my amazing team for joining me on this journey.