At School, who do you trust?
As a brand-new teacher, the most unnerving thing is to look up and see you principal standing in the back of the room observing. Not a formal observation mind you, they are just standing their watching. It unnerves you. It unhinges you. You begin to question what you have done for the past 5 minutes and replay everything in your head. What did I say? What did I do?
Worse, you begin to replay the past week. What did I do over the past week? What did I say to someone? Did I send an email that I shouldn’t have? Is a student or parent mad at me? Am I getting fired? Will I never be able to work in education again? AAAAHHHHH!!!!! My life is ruined!!!!
Okay. Maybe not to the extreme of the last part, but I can say I have had my mind go there at least once in my teaching career. But I have spun my last minutes of my lesson and last week through my head when I see my admin in my room unannounced.
Why do we have this reaction? Why is there such a deep fear when our admin are in our room? Why is it that we don’t assume that the admin is there just to see how we are doing?
After I saw my principal in the back of the room, I held the concern throughout the class. As soon as I finished, I hurried to find him and ask if anything was wrong. His response, which I learned framed his entire belief about leadership, was that he would step into classes and see what was happening. The reason? He wanted to know what was happening in the school.
This simple discussion framed my experience for the first several years of my teaching career. It still impacts me now as both an educator and soon to be administrator. I understood that my administrator wanted to know the school and see what was happening. Not to catch teachers making mistakes, but to see the good stuff they were doing. He relayed this repeatedly to us throughout the years and his predecessor followed on with that practice. It was the norm for us.
Now, this has not always been the case at schools. However, more often than not, my experience with admin was positive. I know this is not always the case with admin, but more often than not, everyone is working towards the same goal.
It comes down to one simple word though. One that I see as missing in far too many people in education. This word is missing from teachers and administrators alike. Not to mention in students, parents, the public and politicians.
Trust.
That is it. One word. Trust. There is a lack of trust between parents and schools. Politicians and school districts. But worst of all, there is a lack of trust between teachers and administration.
This past week I engaged in a Twitter thread by responding to a statement. I did not realize that my response would create such a level of discussion, and in some cased frustration or anger, towards me and the response. It is social media, so I should expect this by now. There are few rational discussions and thoughts on social media as most responses tend to the extreme. We touch a nerve, or an emotion and it takes off.
The thread? It started as a comment about administrators should keep students in the office if they are sent there. A fair statement. If a student is in the office, there is a reason that student is there. There is a reason that the teacher sent the student there. Action should be taken to move forward and support the teacher and the student.
This is where I got in trouble.
My response, in short, was I wanted to meet with the teacher to discuss why they were in my office. My reasoning, as an administrator, I need both sides of the story and students often show up with no explanation other than “my teacher sent me”. The why? If a student is in the office, they are on a discipline and suspension track without further explanation. In short, I need to know why the student is there and what we should do with the student. In my mind, a reasonable request.
The responses suggested that this was not as reasonable as I thought.
My first mistake was that I did not clarify why I wanted to hear from the teacher. In a word, communication. If a student is in the office, there needs to be clear communication of why that student is removed from the class. This allows us to determine which students are of concern, when they are being removed, and address underlying issues of why they are out of the classroom. Also, we know what the expected response is from the administration.
My second mistake was not being clear about documentation. Many teachers do document why the student has left the classroom through whatever system the school uses. Some choose not to claiming not enough time, it is difficult, or that is someone else’s job. Without documentation, nothing can really happen. No change can occur because we cannot cite evidence as to the ongoing behavior in the classroom with out data and written evidence.
What surprised me though was that the points made against my response, while varied came down to one simple issue.
Trust. Or more directly, a lack of it.
I got the sense that teachers did not trust their administrator to do the right thing in supporting them. Or that there was a belief that the administrators did not trust the teachers to do the right thing and would no respond appropriately. There seemed to be a significant breakdown in trust between educators and administration. People didn’t trust each other.
In my first school as a new teacher, and every school since, I have had to build trust with my teaching team and administration. I did not trust my principal when he walked in to simply just check in on me. I had to learn and build up my trust with him to know that he was looking out for me. Once that happened, I viewed these incidents from a very different light. It became collegial and supportive. He would ask questions about the class and I would answer. The only time he ever used these as observations was when he had not seen something in my formal observations and would cite his walk throughs. I trusted my administration team.
Not everyone does. And that is a significant issue for education today. You have to trust your administration to be looking out for the best for you. However, it is clear that there are far too many dysfunctional schools out there where trust is not real. Where positive, healthy relationships do not appear to be a priority throughout the school between the admin team and the teachers.
How does this impact the students in the classroom? They see it. That lack of a sense of a functioning community is impacted by the broken relationships between the leadership and the staff team. It flows down to the relationships with students and out to the parents. The system is broken at a deep core level. When teachers respond with “I will talk to you when I have time” about student issues, it is a broken and damaged school.
How do you expect students to learn at their best when the adults don’t play nice?
No, you do not need to be friends and spend time together outside of school. But, there needs to be a mutual respect and understanding that educators and administrators are working for the best of the students. Not with opposing goals, but with mutually supportive beliefs and understanding.
We need to trust each other. That takes time and effort. It is at the root of our beliefs about schools. It is developed through building positive, healthy relationships. Without trust, your school doesn’t function well. Or, if it does, other power dynamics are likely at play to make it work.
Educators, do you trust you administration? Administrators, do you trust your educators? In this incredibly difficult world of teaching and educating students today, we have to trust each other. We are all we have and our students deserve the best we can give them.
I challenge you to consider how you can build trust and healthy relationships in the coming school year among your school team. Start the process now. Build healthy relationships. Work to instill trust in your team now. Make that happen. It takes time, but it is so worth the effort.
