Being courageous in school is one of the earliest ways to boost your confidence and decide who you want to be as a person.
Exploring different avenues of courage and personal expression is essential in order to grow into a fully-formed individual, and will prepare you for the real world!
How do you show courage in school?
Showing courage in school often involves standing up for others, being positive when others are being negative, sticking to your own sense of self, and getting involved in groups or clubs. Being courageous is sometimes as simple as raising your hand and asking questions.
Here are a few ways to show courage in school:
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11 Great Ways to Show Courage at School:
No matter what level of schooling you are in, showing courage can be a daunting experience.
Usually, students associate showing courage in school with deviating from their peers and standing out from the crowd – making their own choices and encouraging others to do the same.
This can be the case, but often, showing courage means doing things that make you happy, things that you know to be right, or even just speaking up for yourself in the face of bullying.
We’ve listed a few ways that you can show courage in school and how you can help others do the same:
1. Stand Up For Others
When it comes to school, there are a lot of ways that students can hurt the feelings of others.
Often, it isn’t done on purpose and can, in fact, be a representation of their own insecurities that turn themselves into harmful jokes or insults.
For those of us who have been subject to ill-natured intent and cruel jokes in school, it is important to try and stand up for others to prevent it from happening again.
Whether you are defending someone or standing up against someone else (not violently or through physical confrontation, of course), you have the potential to show courage and protect someone or prevent a harmful situation.
For example, if someone is being bullied or picked on, or is being made fun of for getting a question wrong, expressing your dislike for their treatment shows that you are willing to stand up against bullies and protect your fellow classmate.
Doing this shows courage, and it allows you to try and make a change in your school’s environment.
This also shows initiative to the teachers at the school.
2. Have Your Own Style
Sometimes courage is about doing what you like instead of what you think is expected of you by your peers.
Often this manifests itself in student culture, such as taste in music, fashion, literature, movies, etc.
Students will often adopt or adapt to things that they don’t necessarily find fun or interesting if only to fit in with their peers. There’s nothing wrong with trying out new music or wearing something different – school is about finding yourself and what YOU like while you still have time to mess around with your own interests.
However, if you are unhappy with the things that your peers like or expect of you, consider sticking to your sense of self and do what you want to do.
This can be seen as courageous.
Whether your style is “pretty in pink” or “hipster goth,” or something in between, you are telling others that you will wear whatever you like or listen to whatever kind of music you want. You may like the new episode of a show that came out that others did not.
Who cares?
Have courage and be yourself! There’s a reason girls typically like emo boys.
3. Ask Questions
Nothing is more terrifying in school than raising your hand to ask or answer a question that you worry would sound dumb to the people around you.
For some reason, this is a huge difficulty for many students. Most of the time, this comes from bullying, and the idea that you should be smart and already know the material in school or else not speak up at all.
This is false and should be expunged from school life.
If you are learning a new subject and ask questions, the point is to learn and to consult the teacher. If you aren’t, you will never fully grasp the concept that the teacher is trying to convey to you.
Raising your hand and asking questions, even if you think they are dumb, is a courageous and positive thing to do in school. Not only are you getting the information you need, but you are showing other people that you would rather know the material than be too afraid to ask.
After all, there are no dumb questions.
4. Make Mistakes (Embrace Learning From Them)
Along with asking questions is answering them.
It can be scary to try and answer a question only to end up being wrong. This can embarrass a lot of students, but it shouldn’t! If you are still learning the material, you shouldn’t have all the answers, and giving it a shot is courageous and necessary to learn.
Many students can’t learn from books and lectures alone – they need hands-on learning that often involves discussions, lab projects, or presentations.
We’ve all done things that make us uncomfortable, but learning from our mistakes is what helps us grow into better people. The courageous part is giving yourself opportunities to make those mistakes and take charge of your own life.
If you are wrong, stumble, make a bad assumption, or say something that you regret – embrace it, learn from it, and then let it go! You’ll be so glad that you did.
5. Say “NO” to Bullying!
Along with standing up for others and voicing your displeasure at the ways that others are treated is saying “no” to bullying.
Often when we think of saying “no” to bullying, we think of standing up to bullies and getting in their faces in order to defend others.
This isn’t the case!
Instead, saying “no” to bullying means that we tell our friends when we think that they are being mean. We don’t join in on the laughter when someone does something cruel. Furthermore, it mostly means not being a bully yourself.
There is a fine line between making a joke and hurting someone’s feelings – it is better to avoid humor that may be at someone else’s expense and instead stick to topics that are fun for everyone.
Finally, telling our friends that they are making us or someone else unhappy or uncomfortable is a great way to tell everyone you are not afraid to stand up for yourself and others.
Have courage!
6. Stick To Your Principles
If you do confront someone about their cruel jokes at another’s expense, stick to it!
You never want to be wishy-washy and go back on your own moral code. If you do, other people will no longer want to take your advice or believe you when you say that you think something is wrong.
If, for example, you criticize someone for a mean joke, and then make a mean joke the next day in the same manner, you are going back on your principles and are missing the point of standing up for others.
Furthermore, if someone tries to get you to do something that you don’t believe in, you should stick up for yourself and say “no.” It is better to stick to your guns and continue saying “no” if they pressure you further. Trust me, and it isn’t the end of the world if you make someone upset for a day.
Even your friends will get over it, and you will find that saying “no” was better than doing the thing that made you uncomfortable in the first place.
7. Offer to Help Others
Helping others doesn’t always mean saving someone from being the victim of bullying.
Instead, helping others out of the goodness of your heart when you see them struggling is very brave. It may not sound brave, but it is much easier to do nothing than to do something and do good.
If someone has fallen behind on their schoolwork and is struggling with the material, offer to help them study – even if you don’t know them!
Sometimes other students are afraid to ask for help, so you taking the time to offer to help them without being asked can prevent that student from feeling foolish or alone.
8. Make Friends
Making friends is very scary, but can be some of the best things you’ll ever do in your entire lifetime.
There are a lot of different ways to make friends, but most of them involve getting within the same circles of people you have things in common with!
Whether you join the choir class because you love theatre and singing, or you join a science team and build things together, you are making friends with people who share your interests!
You don’t have to always join a club or group in order to make friends, though. Sometimes you can just turn to someone in your classroom and ask them about themselves.
What do they like? Have they heard of a certain band or music group? What do they do on weekends?
You don’t have to be invasive or annoying in order to strike up a polite conversation, and if you think they aren’t enjoying the conversation, pull away, and try again later.
Furthermore, don’t get discouraged if you think no one has responded positively to you. If you keep trying, you are bound to find someone who has something in common with you – there are more people in the world like you than you think!
9. Encourage Others to do Good
More than just standing up for what you believe in, try to get others to do good and positive things!
If you volunteer, try to get others to do so, too. If you are standing up against a bully, make it clear to other people that you don’t approve of that behavior, and they shouldn’t either!
You should never try to change someone’s personality or behavior, and you definitely aren’t their parent, but sometimes telling your friends that you want to be a better person, or to try harder, will make them want to do it also.
10. Engage in Public Speaking
Another terrifying thing that students have to deal with is public speaking.
Giving presentations, singing in front of a group, offering up a speech or cheer at a pep rally, or even just getting up in front of your class and asking a question can be really hard!
But you should try and do it anyway!
Public speaking, even once, can help you further yourself along into a professional individual who is able to try and capture the attention of a room. It can also boost your confidence or teach you valuable skills about how you present yourself and how you should be presenting yourself to others.
Shying away from these opportunities because of fear only does you a disservice!
Everyone messes up when public speaking, but if you prepare and try your hardest, you can do a good job, too!
11. Join A Team or Club
It is hard to do things after school.
Often, students just want to go home and forget the school day even happened – but you’d be missing out on so much if you did this!
Clubs, teams, groups, and organizations are meant to help you make friends and get involved in your community! You can learn a new skill or even build things, make things, invent things, or perform!
If you have certain interests, try to join a club and learn from your peers who have been in the club for far longer than you. Not only can you expand on these interests, but you can work hard to show how brave you are to make mistakes and learn from them!
Does Showing Courage Matter When Teachers Evaluate Students?
Courage in the classroom and in clubs or teams is a great way to improve your performance or grade in the eyes of a teacher or coach.
If you are trying to work hard to become captain of your team, showing courage and making good choices can help you get there.
If you are trying to boost your letter grade, ask questions, and participate in class discussions – sometimes that is considered extra credit!
Remember, you don’t have to be brave in all areas in order to show courage – even one or two of these examples we’ve listed can help boost your confidence and show others that you aren’t afraid to make positive changes!