Trust in Education

In my experience as a brick and mortar teacher, trust is a critical component to a middle/high school classroom. I worked primarily with learning students who have unfortunately become accustomed to teachers thinking they were stupid, and classmates making fun of them. Without establishing a connect and trust with these students, they would continue to be shut down and not try their best. My students were told from day one that I can't and I'm to stupid were never permitted to be uttered in my classroom or my presence. I had students that worked for me that refused to work for any other teachers. They had A's in my room while they were flunking everything else. In this generation of "internet kids" being online is a scary place but it is like the car accident that you can't look away from - they know that it isn't always a safe place to be, but they can't leave it alone. It is a place to stay in touch with their friends that they may not be able to see regularly in this single parent/2 working parent world. It has also become a place to 'facelessly' harass and bully their peers and classmates. This 'faceless' part of the internet world is what I believe makes establishing trust so important. I recently completed an interview for an online teaching position where I was told that the students are never permitted to turn on their cameras because their teachers are not to see into their homes. It is therefore impossible to tell if it is truly that student that is completing the work, or a parent or sibling. If the students are not required to report daily to the online classroom, it is important that their be trust between teacher and student that work be completed ontime and on their own. It is important that trust be established between students in the class. Although it is theoretically less pressure to be responding facelessly, it is also less pressure to treat your fellow classmates with respect. When discussions take place, students must feel that they can trust their classmates to be respect of their points of view and differences of opinion. This can be an excellent opportunity to establish a sense of community as long as guidelines are followed. I believe that by establishing guidelines ahead of time and increasing their autonomy as the course progresses, this opportunity can be harnessed by both teachers and students to allow ideas and perspectives to be shared. I have noticed in our online face to face meetings on bluejeans, we are all trying to respect each other and not interrupt. Although this is wonderful, I believe that it also leads to less participation because we do not want to talk over each other or interrupt someone when an idea pops into our head. By having discussions and chat boards, students are able to share thoughts and idea without fear of interruption or running out of time in a limited 1-hour face to face meeting.