#IMMOOC Week 3 – About Trust

Sarah Hodgson
Oct 2, 2016
4 min read

“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”

Stephen R. Covey

I am a big ‘trust’ gal. Trust and respect are, in my book, two crucial (and often overlooked) words in education. In life. Here’s quite a passionate post I wrote in 2012 about respect.

So when I heard ‘trust‘ on #IMMOOC Episode 3, I felt a spark within me. Trust is absolutely essential to learning and has many different connotations inside and outside of the classroom. Here are a few of my thoughts on trust – using some definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary (cos I’m a Brit).

/trəst/

NOUN

Firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. Relationships have to be built on trust. Teachers have to trust their leadership team. Kaleb Rashad talked about ‘psychological safety’. I understand this completely as I have experienced first hand a situation, in a previous job, where staff did not feel safe. There was a definite climate of fear. Trust was not present. Trust and positive relationships between leadership, teachers, students, and parents are imperative for optimum learning to occur. Loved the ‘TRIP’ acronym: Trust enables risk taking, Risk taking propels innovation, Innovation leads to progress. Progress is what we want! For further reading I found this TRIP article by @DovSeidman.
The state of being responsible for someone or something. We, as educators, are responsible for the students in our classrooms. We are entrusted, by parents, to take care of their children from the moment they enter the school building to the moment they leave it. It is a huge responsibility. Never underestimate the impact you have on each and every student you teach.

VERB

Believe in the reliability, truth, or ability of. Students need to be trusted more. Teachers must let go and trust that the students can be in charge of their own learning, no matter their age or ability. As a PYP (Primary Years Programme) educator, this is something I struggle with on a daily basis. Even though many PYP schools and educators say they are teaching through ‘inquiry-based’ learning, I have yet to see a school that TRULY embraces FREE inquiry to the extent that they could/should. @trev_mackenzie explains the types of student inquiry (see image) and I feel that the inquiry happening in many classrooms is ‘structured inquiry’. It’s the easy road. And free inquiry is not easy. But then nothing worth doing ever is. But that is not what is best for our students. Unfortunately, the pressure of mandated literacy, maths, and goodness-knows-what-else programs leave little room for teachers to fully explore free inquiry. At best, a period or two is reserved for ‘genius hour/iTime/passion projects’. It is not enough. Students should be trusted to lead a unit of inquiry. Teachers should be trusting their students more and letting go of the reins.
Allow someone to have, use, or look after (someone or something of importance or value) with confidence. In order for teachers to let go more, they also need to be trusted by leadership teams. Principals/Directors/Heads of Schools are responsible for hiring teachers they can trust. They are responsible for hiring teachers that do not need to be micro-managed. The initiative and (dare I say?) permission for teachers to innovate needs to come from above. I’m new to my school this year and during orientation week the Principal said “please feel free to be innovative and experiment”. There’s my permission! Now I’m wondering if he’s read “The Innovator’s Mindset”.
Have confidence; hope. I trust that somehow, in the not too distant future, I will be more innovative with my students. Lots of seeds have been planted, lots of snowballs have been started, and I look forward to seeing how they grow and where they roll. At the centre of everything is student learning. I know that I will continue this never-ending quest for progress. I realised that I might have been pushing too hard, and trying to force innovation. I realise now that it won’t happen like that.
Have faith or confidence. Our students trust in us, their teachers. I’m going to do what Kaleb Rashad suggested. I’m going to love the hell out of them, meet them where they are, disrupt them where I can, and allow progress to happen naturally.

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Putting this at the end (for my records)… my sketchnote for this week. Sketchnoting is something I’m relatively new to. I enjoy it and it helps me to organise my thoughts. I also find it quite relaxing!

Inspired by @sylviaduckworth a year or so ago, I decided it was time to start creating.

I’ve always loved drawing. Since I was a child, I’ve always doodled when listening to teachers/lectures/meetings (some saw this as disengagement, but it actually helps me think). I love art. I love colour. Yet I don’t consider myself an artist.

I know I have an artistic eye. Some would say perfectionist eye. I can’t bear displays to be wonky or cluttered or made with colours that clash. My dream job would be to teach ART. I don’t have any degrees in art or any formal art qualifications. I just have a PASSION for it. OK, I feel like I’m almost writing a post just about the sketchnote!