Drawing on pictures, written sentences and interview contributions, this article explores some Palestinian children's perspectives in order to gain insights into some children's classroom fear in the light of its potential influence on learning. After presenting some existing research indicating a negative relationship between fear and young children's transformational learning, we explain the distinctions we make among different forms of authoritarian pedagogies and how all of these contrast with a transformational approach to schooling. We then report on the words and pictures of refugee Palestinian pupils as a starting point for reflecting on the associations between authoritarianism, coercion and fear in the classroom, how these might influence learning approached from a transformational perspective and what the implications for future practice might be.