Relationships + Trust
The missing component I learned to include when training on building relationships
As a new school year launches, I’ll be taking a two week break from writing; the next essay will be published on Wednesday, September 11. Feel free to catch up on previous essays you’ve not yet been able to read and/or revisit favorite ones and share with colleagues and friends. Happy new school year!
Where to start: Trust begins with listening.
- Zaretta Hammond
Education is a people-oriented industry. Across 100+ training sessions, I often asked people to reflect and share on their “why” of working in education. Their answers almost always included a desire to make a positive impact on the life of children and youth, often inspired by someone who impacted their own life.
As we move further into the school year, our “why” can get buried underneath the ever-growing pile of what we have to do in a given day, week, or month. Sometimes the content we teach can supplant the relationships in the classroom. There is so much pressure to get to a certain point in the curriculum, prepare kids for “the test,” and so forth, that we can be tempted to rush past relationship-building. In the effort to adequately present content, we can forget that really we’re teaching students - human beings - not just teaching a subject.1
Research on the topic of hope tells us that the presence of one positive adult relationship in a child’s life can make a difference and can help mitigate the effects of trauma. But what does a “positive” or “authentic” relationship really look like?
While I was training on building relationships, I initially focused on strategies for building connections with students, but I missed the key component of trust. Connection is important enough, and I learned (later than I would have liked) that it’s crucial to also talk about building trust and why it’s important for student learning.
Now, to clarify - the question is not, do I trust my students? But rather, do each of my students trust me? Do they know I care for them? Can they count on me (am I reliable and consistent)? Do I show them that they are valued?
Without trust in a relationship (especially a teacher-student relationship), when someone feels like they’re being challenged (i.e. by a new learning concept), it can push them into “amygdala hijack” - experiencing the fight, flight, or freeze response. At this point, they’re in survival mode, and the brain does what it can to seek safety. This is why students generally have difficulty learning from people that they don’t trust: their brains are seeking safety and being challenged outside of a trusting relationship can register as a social-emotional threat. As Zaretta Hammond writes, “Trust deactivates the amygdala and blocks the release of cortisol. Trust, therefore, frees up the brain for other activities such as creativity, learning, and higher order thinking.”2 This is why building and maintaining trust is so critical for students. A trusting relationship, not just a connected one, paves the way for students to be challenged and to grow as learners.
Hammond provides several “trust generators”3 -
Selective vulnerability - showing students your human side that isn’t perfect
Familiarity - developing comfort around someone who you often see in a particular setting
Similarity of interests - creating a bond over shared hobbies, likes, dislikes, and so forth
Concern - showing care for issues important to another person, like important events
Competence - demonstrating the skill and motivation to provide help and support
The connection-building strategies that I initially shared while training did cover some of these “trust generators,” but I learned that the end goal needs to include building trust, not only fostering connection.
What ways do you build trust in relationships? By using any of the trust generators? What else?
I’m excited for us to be able to learn from each other as I share what I’ve learned. It’s important that sharing and learning be welcoming and inclusive.
Expectations for comments:
Be curious
Be kind
I once had a teacher tell me during a training on building relationships just as we were returning to “regular” in-person instruction post-COVID that this was all just “fluff stuff” and not necessary for them to do their job well.
Hammond, Z., & Jackson, Y. (2015). Building the Foundation of Learning Partnerships. Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students (pp. 76). Corwin, a SAGE Company.
Here’s “Figure 5.2 Trust Generators” from the book https://resources.corwin.com/sites/default/files/10._figure_5.2_trust_generators.pdf