When students are afraid and lack confidence in their performance in front of their teachers and classmates, not only does their academic performance decline, but they also suffer from stress and anxiety or depression, because they fear failing or because they compare themselves to others.

Although these feelings may be part of immaturity and lack of experience with many topics, the teacher can offer them, in addition to disciplinary training, guidance so that they develop their interpersonal skills and learn to have character.

It is important that they are told that these skills are learned , practiced, strengthened, and that they know that their teachers are no more or better than them. Let them learn to share and defend their well-founded positions, being critical.

Initiative and confidence in possibilities

Academic training should not only provide students with disciplinary theoretical knowledge. It must also be ensured that they are able to apply them to solve problems and situations that they face in their daily lives.

To do so with a chance of success, they must feel safe, because only then will they be agents with initiative and believers that they can change what already exists. To have this confidence, they must understand that, just like anyone else, they too are capable of making changes.

Trust is opening yourself to infinite possibilities. When we trust we begin to see the signs, the synchronicities; intuitions appear and new things are created.

Avoid teacher superiority

Teachers who behave with an attitude of superiority, showing themselves controlling in class, do not contribute to instilling these feelings.

On the other hand, the attitude of 21st century teachers could be that of integral trainers of professionals committed to themselves and their community. Professionals confident in their skills and critical sense, their ability to communicate, collaborate and creativity, now known as “ 4C’s skills ”.

For this, the teacher must be a guide and trigger of the knowledge that is accessible everywhere. They are no longer the only holders of knowledge.

Talk about issues that are not subjects

It is the duty of teachers to be trainers of professionals and to promote confidence in class between boys and girls through targeted messages, activities and attitudes that can serve as an example.

Talk to them about resilience, acceptance of failure and success, fear, one’s own judgment, etc. It must be part of the courses, in addition to the disciplinary topics corresponding to the area of ​​knowledge and learning of each teacher.

But not as mere and simple definitions: they must be lived in daily life, emphasizing learning, socializing the emotions experienced during the activity.

Constructive criticism and positive attitude

When the teacher avoids making judgments, and instead seeks constructive criticism, it is possible to review experiences and learning every day. In this way reflections arise that allow us to realize that failure is nothing more than a step or a stage towards success.

And that success, on the other hand, is an attitude , not an achievement or manifestation of things. When we manage to understand that fear comes from everything we imagine about a situation, based on our background, knowledge, life history and experiences, we can take a risk and see that often what happens is different and our fears improbable.

You can learn to make a sustained criticism based on information and with suggestions, options for change or improvement; never based solely on disqualification.

Emotional goals

To be a teacher trainer, generator of security and confidence in students, we have to know and apply all these concepts in our personal lives. Also know or look for how to provoke them in the class by promoting the socialization of the results and the disciplinary work developed in the classroom.

In each course, set disciplinary, professional and emotional goals. This will also raise the quality of the environments in schools because there will be “good vibes” in the classroom between students and teachers. Positive psychology has many benefits. We are in the 21st century, let’s act like people of the 21st century.

Author Bio: Araceli Hernandez Tinoco is Senior Research Professor, University Center of Biological and Agricultural Sciences of the University of Guadalajara. (Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the classroom) at the University of Guadalajara