Building Trust

Mary Kate asked in her post long ago, "What tools can you share?  How can we show patience, kindness, and respect with these tools?"

Thank you for your questions Mary Kate, there was a little voice in the back of my head that has recently grown into a scream - START WRITING.  You have been patient - months worth of patient, you have been kind and respectful.  Never once reminding me that I had not posted on our shared space.  Thank you for that.

All three of the qualities you mention, patience, kindness and respect, for me add up to trust.  So my hunch is that you built a lot of trust with your students and others over the past school year. 

I started thinking about how we build trust with students. Most of us don’t just quickly handover our trust.  We ease into trust over time, through shared experiences, and usually through some confidentiality that has not been broken.  It is the same with our students and teams; trust takes time and reassurance. 

 Mary Kate asked – What tools can you share?  Well here is my confession. I don’t really have many tools.  Yes, I do use tools like Google docs to communicate and create shared thinking spaces with colleagues.  I am really thankful for those tools.  But all in all, I don’t have many tools.  I guess I am thinking that the best tools we have are those honest moments of conversations, the tool of listening, the tool of taking the time to reflect and then respectfully responding or many times to be silent, to be that listener. 

I am trying to earn trust.  Trust so that I can truly work side by side with my teammates.  To let them know that I will work hard to not let them down.  Trust from them to allow me to share the students under their thoughtful care.  Trust that I don’t have answers rather I have the patience to learn and time to try out plans together. 

I may never know if I am truly making a difference in my collaboration with others but I do have the control to be kind and patient and respectful.    For me right now those are the true tools I am trying to develop.

Mary Kate, what are you reflecting on this summer that will impact your collaborations with others in the new school year?  Readers, we would love to hear your thinking on new collaborations and tools.