Think back to your deepest fear when you were 10 years old.
I was afraid of vicious dogs getting out of their yards and chasing me as I walked home from the school bus stop. I was afraid of being kidnapped. I was afraid of the world being destroyed in a nuclear war.
But what are 10-year-olds today afraid of? Well, I can tell you what my 10-year-old daughter’s classmates fear.

There’s a series of posters stuck up outside my daughter’s classroom. On the posters, the students have shared their dreams for the future and their fears. I started to read them, thinking they might be cute. Instead, as I read my way through them, I found myself becoming sad. Really sad.
The kids had a range of fears – insects, wild animals, clowns – but there was one that kept turning up over and over: failing a test.