Trust

Source: Yuriy Seleznev/Shutterstock

Trust is a nebulous thing - it's hard to define and even harder to develop and maintain. It's the cornerstone of our relationships. Trusting someone means you can rely on them, that you have confidence in them and that you feel safe with them both emotionally and physically. It's easy to say you trust someone, but it's hard to do and it's equally hard to be trustworthy.

Relationships cannot survive without trust because it is the willingness to be vulnerable to another person based on the confidence that the other is benevolent, honest, open, reliable and competent.

For organisations like schools, trust is a powerful resource in day to day work. It plays an important role in visioning, modelling, coaching, managing and mediating (Tschannen-Moran, 2014). A school built on trust is more productive, more engaged, happier. It's buoyed along on it's own tide of positive emotion. People feel it when they walk into the office. They see it watching kids at work and play. They hear it in teachers' voices. They see it in our faces.

What to do when trust is broken? How much does it hurt? How widely does it spread? Can it be built back? Is it possible to make yourself vulnerable again? Can we again have confidence that the other will be benevolent, honest, open, reliable and competent once more? How long does it take? Trust matters; it matters in our personal relationships, in our working lives, in our social lives... and in our school.

'I don't ask for much, I only want trust,

And you know it don't come easy'

Ringo Starr

Tschannen-Moran, Megan (2014) Trust Matter: Leadership for Successful Schools, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

Start out how you mean to go on

Start out how you mean to go on - this is one of my favourite catch cries. It's very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to start something one way - to set something up, to communicate a culture or way of behaving - and then say, no, I've changed my mind, we're going to do it this way now! And so it is with classrooms. A rowdy classroom where the focus is on something other than quality learning and quality relationships is very hard to turn around.

Last Tuesday, the first day of the 2015 school year, I started my first rounds of our school about 8.50am in Prep. As I approached the first classroom a Dad was looking in through the windows quite all at sea, fumbling with his phone. 'Just having one last look, are you?' I said smiling, hoping to calm his nerves. 'Look at this!' he said. 'And it's the same in Year 1!'.

I looked through the window a bit apprehensively. Twenty six Preps were sitting or standing around tables, talking, playing, cutting, sticking, writing their name, looking at the interactive whiteboard, and generally looking like they had been there a month - not 10 minutes!

I couldn't see the teacher - oh wait, there she is, crouched by a table talking with one or two children about what they were doing.

I smiled at the Dad again, 'We don't waste any time here', I said. And I went on my way. And yes, when I got down to Year 1, it was the same.

Thirty four classrooms across our school have started out how they mean to go on - a focus on kids, on quality relationships and on quality learning. What a joy it is to work and play in this place!

Things in schools that should never change

I recently read a blog post by esteemed educator and leader, George Couros, whose work I follow who wrote about 3 Things That Should Never Change In Schools.  George says these three things are

1. The focus on relationships
2. Opportunities outside the classroom
3. Learning in an respectful manner

and it caused me to reflect on all the change Principals and teachers are continually expected to bring about in schools. Every meeting with the 'powers that be' and every email from the 'powers that be' brings another change (dressed up as a new initiative or a 'ground breaking' program or a new direction for the Department), but it is a change none the less. And in all of this change, it's what stays the same that makes the difference to kids.

In our school a focus on relationships looks and sounds like happy smiling kids, happy smiling teachers (and other staff too, of course), lessons with buddy class once a week, new students being given 'the tour', explicit teaching about manners and expected standards of behaviour, and staff who spend their break times counselling children in need of assistance.

Opportunities 'beyond the classroom' include lunch clubs (there are loads of them), Visual Art lessons, charity work, student leadership, Reader's Cup, excursions, camps, carnivals, games, laying around on a cushion in the Resource Centre reading, Assembly performances, and musical and dramatic opportunities.

And learning in a respectful manner is a cornerstone in our school.

At the end of the day the changes count for nothing unless these things stay the same!

I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so...

These lyrics sung by British band, The Vapours, in the 1980s were classic. Kids still know them even if they've never heard the whole song!

This might be an odd title for a blog post but over the last few weeks the lyrics keep going through my head - of course, we are not turning Japanese - but we are about to welcome the first Japanese Study Tour Group to our school. Seventeen 10-15 year olds and their teacher from West Japan will spend a week with us, learning English in the mornings, joining classes in the afternoons, and staying with their excited host families at night.

What a marvellous opportunity for all of us to learn something about this unique and surprising country and its people - and maybe even make some lifelong friends in the process.

Of course, we're not 'turning Japanese' at all. It's the last thing our visitors would want - they are coming to experience our Australian culture and to improve their English, that is, they want to develop their intercultural skills and understandings. And in the process of their visit, there is much we can learn too.

Intercultural competence is an important set of skills - it's about more than enjoying the food, geography and arts of a culture. It's more about understanding how a group of people think about the world and their place in it. Our children's future will be about the ability to engage with Asia in ways beyond simply visiting its glorious beaches and amazing cities for the summer holidays. This is not about 'turning Japanese' but about becoming more understanding, developing relationships, sustaining dialogue, and ultimately, its about economic growth, prosperity and international security.

So lets open our arms in that friendly Australian way, and open our minds at the same time. Spending time with our Japanese friends will be an opportunity not to be missed.

What to do in this weather...

If you are like me, you are probably quite affected by the weather. On a sunny day I feel optimistic and uplifted. Warm sunshine imparts a general feeling of wellbeing. Rain, clouds and cool weather leave me feeling somewhat deflated and at times, quite gloomy.

I have always found that connecting with others generates the same feelings as sunny days - I don't mean connecting on the Internet such as Facebook and email. I mean real connection involving a warm bodied person who laughs along with you, gossips and tells stories.

Games are often at the root of all connection between humans. As a youngster my Grandma taught me how to play 21; a little unorthodox - but my skills and fluency in adding and subtracting numbers to 21, remembering what was left in the deck, and strategising about what Grandma had in her hand was phenomenal. Games were played in our home a lot - Monopoly, Scrabble, draughts and chess were the order of the day. I also remember Boggle, Battleships (my brothers loved that), Mousetrap, Pictionary, Uno and Four in a Row. Playing games was great fun and it taught us kids a lot about cooperation, being a 'good' loser, and the place of competition. We would laugh a lot, look at each other's faces, practice 'give and take', use our manners, and would usually be sitting around a table talking about other things as we played.

On the weekend I read about some research into the educational power of parents*. A group of 125 parents were asked to play a board game one night a week for four weeks with their children. The results were stunning - parents and teachers reported improved concentration, social interaction, and cooperation with siblings. (Doesn't every parent want this last one!) Playing board games also boosted patience, teamwork, sharing, communication, sporting behaviour, critical thinking skills, and fluency in maths and spelling. Family relationships improved and parents were amazed that their children did not need to be glued to the TV or Nintendo.

Parent engagement in their child's learning and development takes many forms - and if you are interested in giving your child's learning, manners, compassion, play habits, kindness and thinking skills a boost, you can't go wrong with a deck of cards and a game of 21! (Perhaps draughts might be a bit more politically correct these days.) And let's face it - our current weather system is certainly giving us plenty of reasons to stay indoors and enjoy the company of our family.

These days I still play games; many on my iPad. These are often designed to play alone or against the machine itself. I still find a way to interact with someone else, even if it means posting a 'Help' on my Facebook page for a 4Pics 1Word puzzle.

* Herald Sun, Wednesday 19 August 2009, p 27

Stories kids tell...

Quite often we hear at school about something a child has told their parents their teacher has said or done that has caused a great deal of consternation in the home. My own daughter used to tell me stories about her teachers that would have made their hair curl, had I repeated them!

Most times parents come and ask us about the situation and we are able to put the story straight - many times the stories are quite funny; but occasionally a teacher will say to me in anguish 'how could they have thought I would have said/done/thought that?'

The thing is that kids sometimes (actually a lot of times) get things muddled. They are not liars and they are not lying - they are merely reporting something they have seen or heard from their perception. They don't have the depth of experience or the level of cognitive development that adults have to draw on to make conclusions about what they've seen or heard, and to give it perspective. And perspective is a wonderful thing to have when trying to make sense of something that has happened. From a small person's point of view things are louder, bigger and more exaggerated - and if your child has heard your own conversations about teachers, they may feel their story adds weight to any conclusions they think you have drawn.

So next time your child tells you a story about their teacher (or me!) and your first reaction is 'you've got to be joking - that couldn't have happened; remember - it probably didn't! At least not in the way your child saw it and reported it to you.

A good response to children's 'horror' stories from school is 'tell me more about that' - and then, just let it go or seek more information from your child's teacher.

Rough Play

What to do about rough play? It's a question we grapple with continuously as many parents question why we stop boys from engaging in what we call 'rough play'. 'It's normal', many of you say, or 'It's just what boys do'. And you are right when you say this.

All young animals engage in playing roughly and testing out their strength... or lack of ... on each other - just watch a group of puppies or kittens for half an hour. They are jumping on each other, biting and scratching and pulling each other to the ground. Occasionally when one gets too rough there is a hiss or yelp warning the stronger one off. This usually results in a short reprieve while everyone cools down before leaping into it again. The rough play of young animals serves a socialising purpose. It's also about 'survival of the fittest' and gaining strength to be the stand out in the litter. And perhaps 'rough play' for young boys is the same.

It can be alarming to see boys engaging in this behaviour at school - there are usually over a hundred boys on the oval at play times (far more than a litter of kittens), and if you can imagine a hundred puppies on the oval you have some idea of the magnitude of the play and some of the potential problems that could occur!

Many boys love to play like this - there's nothing more fun than jumping all over your friends, pulling them to the ground, tripping them as they run by or grabbing someone's hat and keeping it aloft in the air while the poor owner tries to get it back. Really? There's nothing more fun than this? We have just as many boys at school who dislike this kind of play intensely and who are even afraid of it. You see, unlike puppies and kittens who back off when it gets too rough, human animals don't. The 'play' tends to escalate and someone gets hurt - sometimes seriously.

If parents think rough play is important for their child's development then it can be encouraged in small groups (like a litter) under a parent's supervision. It just can't happen at school where we have to consider the risks, both physical and emotional, for ALL boys, of allowing them to play like this.

We believe it's far better to teach cooperative or team games and encourage children to play these as much as possible. They serve the same purpose as rough play - socialising and strength building are inherent in these activities. But they have the added bonus of encouraging the development of quality relationships and connectedness with others.

Rough play separates kids through fear and competition. Cooperative or team games connects kids together through fun and team spirit. I know the outcome I prefer for our boys.