Skip to main content

Dare to Trust

In the last several years of my teaching career, I have made a conscious decision to trust my students. As a part of my opening day speech, I tell my students that even though they have done nothing yet to earn my trust, I choose to trust them. I tell them that I am on their side and that I will believe what they say to me.

If a student tells me his computer crashed just when he was about to send me his essay (the 21st century version of "the dog ate my homework"), I believe him.

If a student says she is not ready for her quiz because she was at the hospital all night with her sick grandmother, I believe her.

Or at least I act like I believe her, and frankly, most of the time I do.

And if I find out one of my students has lied to me, I don't feel stupid. As one of my teacher mentors, Jeff Wilhelm, would say, "it's not my bad." It's not my job to suspect every student of lying and cheating. It is my job to teach, and I know that to teach well, I need to build a rapport with my students. I don't want them to fear me. I want to be a safe place for them to land. Too many times I found out months into the school year that a student was homeless, or that her dad was dying of cancer, or that he'd been struggling with clinical depression. And even though those cases are the exception rather than the rule, I choose to treat every student like the exception.

I have to admit, every time I give my speech about trusting them, about being willing to extend deadlines for those who dialogue with me, a little voice in my head says: "They are so going to take advantage of you. Why would anyone turn in anything on time, if you are willing to accept their lies as truth?" But you know what? I get just as many papers on time as I did when I had a much stricter policy.

The bottom line is this. I would much rather believe liars all day long than suspect the innocent. I would much rather be gullible than cynical. I dare to trust.


Comments

  1. TammyMarch 18, 2012 at 6:44 PM

    You're the best Laur.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laurie RobertsMarch 18, 2012 at 7:04 PM

      Thank, Mac. That means a lot coming from the best teacher (and singer) I know.

      Delete
  2. UnknownMarch 18, 2012 at 6:55 PM

    I would say, as a former student, that by choosing to be a "schmuck" rather than a "jerk" you are gaining a lot of respect from your students. Because you're willing to be so open and kind, your students will rarely take advantage of you. No one cares about the approval from a jerk they dislike, but from what I've found from my experience in your class and from my peers is that no one wants to let down a teacher they genuinely love and respect. You're not being a "schmuck" -- you're being kind, you're being honest, and your students respect you for it. They won't let you down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laurie RobertsMarch 18, 2012 at 7:06 PM

      Thank you so much, Laura dear. It means a lot to hear this from you, because you more than earned my respect in every way imaginable.

      Delete
  3. UnknownMarch 18, 2012 at 7:24 PM

    Wow Laurie that is inspirational. You are an amazing person. I, too, would rather believe positively in people. I think that if I anticipate dishonesty or deceit I am just setting a person up to fail. If I am wrong, I am still right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laurie RobertsMarch 18, 2012 at 9:01 PM

      Thank you! I don't always get it right, but it's definitely a philosophy I try to live out ever day.

      Delete
  4. PaigeMarch 18, 2012 at 8:47 PM

    Beautifully written! All the more reason I would LOVE to have my two kids in you class someday. (Not to mention, they'd love it too!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. warnojMarch 18, 2012 at 9:09 PM

    And that, my dear, is why you are such an honorable teacher and loved by your students. You ARE someone to look up to! (And, yes, I did get an entire set of essays graded before I read your post). :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On This Day

It was a very busy, long morning. I had back-to-back-to-back conferences with kids and parents and my principal that filled every break. Still, classes went mostly well, and I felt like I sort of knew how to teach. Then I went to cnn.com just as lunch was starting--just 5 minutes to spare before I had to meet parents. Wow. Just wow. I struggled to keep myself together. I didn't want to be crying when I met with the parents. But children--little children--shot and killed . . . . The parents were lovely, by the way, asking great questions about their son and telling me how much he likes my class, which really surprised them, because he's a math/science guy. Turns out he thinks I'm funny. I went straight to the church after work to continue working on our Christmas program. It's a huge undertaking, and I don't know how anyone could do it alone. I left feeling grateful for many hands and heads that make light work. And then I went to the Hungry Onion
12 comments
Read more

Believe in Your Seed

Twenty-five years ago, she was a student in my 10th-grade English class in Kellogg, a small mining town in Idaho’s panhandle. Now, she is an educator herself  — an elementary teacher in the same large district where I teach high school English. And today, she stood in front 3000 employees of the Boise School District and delivered a keynote address. Her speech was, to say the least, inspiring. It was expertly crafted — full of story, wit, insight, and charm. Her delivery was seamless, vivid, funny, and, quite frankly, better than any such talk I have heard in 31 years of opening meetings. (I say this as someone who is particularly passionate about public speaking. In fact, public speaking has become one of my greatest passions — both as a teacher who helps students craft presentations, and as someone who dreams of doing exactly what Sonia Galaviz did today.) As she spoke, I experienced her speech on several levels. I was the veteran teacher inspired by a somewhat younger t
5 comments
Read more

I'm Counting

I can picture myself as a preschooler (back when preschool literally meant "before school"), discovering that I could count all the way to 100. What a joyful revelation! Forty-some years later, counting is still an important part of my life. I find comfort and joy in numbers.  I love watching the balance on my mortgage go down--even though it moves very, very slowly. And budgeting night is something I look forward to every month. In fact, I've been known to use it as a reward for myself: grade 20 essays and I get to budget! When I have a pile of essays to grade I make stacks of five or ten (depending on how long the essays are), and I give myself a reward for every stack (10 minutes to eat or watch television, for example).  To manage those really big jobs (like the senior research papers, which take about an hour each) I use a quota system. Once upon a time I thought grading 15 research papers in a week was a reasonable quota, but then my AP numbers grew
9 comments
Read more