Photo credit: RW Sinclair on Visual Hunt /CC BY-NC-SA

Be More Curious Than Afraid

Overcoming fear in service of learning

Shanna Peeples
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

A little over 100 years ago in the Northern California wilderness, an indigenous man believed to be the last of his people, the Yana, left the only world he’d ever known. Miners and militia men had massacred his tribe and taken over their land.

Called “Ishi,” a Yana word meaning man, he was starving by the time he reached Oroville and was picked up by the town’s sheriff. A University of California anthropologist named Alfred Kroeber heard about him and came to see him at the jail. Kroeber invited him to come live at the UC Berkley museum and teach him more about the Yana language and culture.

Ishi/Wikimedia Commons

Ishi agreed to go to San Francisco. As the train arrived at the station, Kroeber realized that Ishi was no longer beside him. Then he noticed Ishi standing behind one of the building’s columns. It took a bit of coaxing, but he finally went along with the professor and boarded the train.

Later, Kroeber asked him why he hesitated. Ishi said that he’d grown up watching the tracks being cut into the valley, then the arrival of the train. Its smoke and noise felt monstrous to the Yana. Worse, they noticed faces in its windows and came to describe it as a demon that ate people.

Kroeber was stunned. How, he wondered, had Ishi found the courage to get on board?

“My life has taught me to be more curious than afraid,” he said.


I first read that story in Pema Chödrön’s book Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living. Ishi’s story is sad and complex, but his courage is what stands out most to me.

As another school year begins, I’m tempted toward the lure of efficiency. Most of the time, I build it from a shorthand of my prejudices and judgements. I’m afraid of judgement myself, so I create preemptive strikes on others.

Like Ishi, I’ve left a familiar world to come live at a university. While it’s understandable that I’ve felt defensive and dumb, it’s not in anyone’s best interest for me to continue that way.

This semester, I will return to a classroom after leaving Room 200 at Palo Duro High School in 2015. As a Teaching Fellow at Harvard College, I will work with a small section of undergraduates in a course called Dilemmas of Equity and Excellence in American K-12 Education.

A central feature of its curriculum is an examination of students’ identity against a backdrop of visits to schools in the Boston area. This context allows the tensions of equity and excellence to come alive from the readings and activities.

As I consider this work, I’m reminding myself to be more curious about my students than afraid of mistakes. I hope to teach them the same as they listen to each other in our small-group discussions.

As Ishi modeled, it’s curiosity that overcomes fear. When we leave fear behind, it allows us to hold each others’ hearts so we can learn from each others’ minds.

Shanna Peeples

Written by

Pursuing learning as a doctoral student @Harvard | 2015 National Teacher of the Year | Author: Think Like Socrates | Otter enthusiast

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