Thursday: Trust in the School

Sorry about missing a post yesterday, but life jumped in the way.  Lucky for you, it's a double day Friday.

Each Thursday, I want to look at atmosphere issues that can bring about success or failure in a school.  In this post, I want to look at the issue of trust in the school.  Inside of a school, there are many different relationships: student-student, student-teacher, teacher-teacher, community-school, etc.

Imagine what would happen in a school where there is a great amount of trust.  Teachers would feel free to collaborate with other teachers.  There would not be a feeling of worry in sharing successes or failures with others.  Teachers and administrators would feel more comfortable working together concerning classroom activities or ideas for the school.  Teachers and parents could establish strong relationships and become partners in the students' education.  This sounds like a great place to work.

Now, let's reflect on a school where trust is lacking.  In a school where trust is lacking, teachers probably act like islands and try to avoid interacting with others.  They fear that what they say will become gossip in the teachers' lounge.  These same teachers probably avoid talking with administrators about issues in the classroom.  They don't want to look as if they have problems in the classroom.  One would probably see an imbalanced relationship between parents, students and teachers again because they would not want issues to make it back to the principal.  This does not sound like as much fun.

A quick review of articles about trust in the work place found many issues the build or destroy trust.
Here is a quick summary of some of those.
1. Communication--If you create buy-in and share ideas, you will build trust.  It is very important for people to know what is happening.  If you keep information locked up or use it as power, you will destroy trust.
2. Value of Others--If you treat people as equals and as important parts of the school, you will foster trust.  However, if you don't treat people as equals or see them as easily replaceable, you can throw trust out the window.
3. Truthfulness--If you engage in lies or telling half-truths, people will begin to doubt anything that you say.  If you always tell the truth, you will develop trust in your school.

Keep these ideas in mind when you consider what you do everyday at work.  Everyone wants to work at a place where they can trust their co-workers.  Sometimes building or maintaining trust will have to begin with you.