Kids need to trust adults in order to learn from them

A classroom isn't a factory, churning out the product of educated humans. We can't just go through the motions of something and assume that someone can learn. The process is highly collaborative and highly dependent on getting into the right emotional state. In order to learn, there needs to be trust.

It's easy to understand why children might have a hard time trusting adults. We, as a society (and sometimes teachers and parents in particular) are constantly telling children things that aren't true in an effort to manipulate them. It's "for their own good" sometimes, and sometimes it's "for our own convenience."

Is it any wonder that, after awhile, they become wary?

Trust goes beyond what is said. A child is looking at not just what we say, but how we say it. They are paying attention to the meaning of what we say and seeing for themselves, on an emotional level, whether it is actually true. Whether it feels like we mean it.

So when we say, "You can do anything if you put your mind to it," is it clear that we believe it in our own lives? Do we believe that it is true for them? Do we believe in them?

Even if there is a positive relationship between teacher and student, there is still potential for misunderstanding or for lack of trust to exist. The stranger and more foreign the message from the teacher, the harder it will be for a student to trust that message.

If a student has been getting the message, explicitly or implicitly, that they just can't do math, and all of a sudden I'm over there telling them that "You can absolutely succeed with math," they are going to have trouble trusting my message.

If they have been getting the message that, "If you get a bad grade, you won't get into college" (and many kids are picking up this exact message), and I tell them that this isn't true, they are going to have trouble believing me (and therefore, trusting me).

And if they have believed most of their life that they are dumb and they have been busy collecting evidence to support this claim, they are going to have trouble believing that it isn't true when I say that it isn't true.

A person has to believe that it is possible for them to learn in order to learn. If they don't believe that they can learn, they will not. So if they don't trust me, they will shut down. They may pick up a few ideas here and there to parrot back on a worksheet, but the deep, collaborative, transformational learning will not take place.

This is a problem, but a resolvable one. It is necessary to build trust, day by day, by showing up with the same consistent, clear message every time. The student will need to believe, in their bones, that we are on the same team. Of course, the student will not believe this simply by being told. It has to actually be true, and the student needs to be able to feel the truth of it. Once this happens, the learning is the easy part.