Social Emotional Learning Topic: Trust
/TRUST: 5 Key Lesson Takeaways
Real trust cannot be one-sided. It is mutual.
For your child to trust you, you have to demonstrate that you have your child’s best interest in mind and give your child the space to build self-confidence.
Demonstrate that you are consistent in your behavior and reactions.
Teachers: support students’ process of inquiry on content and authority.
Parents: role modeling is trusting in yourself.
Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Trust with Audra
Jenny Woo I'm Jenny Woo, and we have Audra Irvine with us to talk about trust. Audra, as an experienced teacher of high school biology, anatomy, and physiology in Massachusetts. She is a Bostonian at heart and has a Master's Degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is passionate about improving teaching practice with cognitive neuroscience, including the ways in which mutual trust can benefit and motivate learning in the classroom. And this is especially important as a teacher of teens.
Jenny Woo [00:01:29] Welcome, Audra.
Audra Irvine [00:01:31] Hi, Jenny. Thanks for having me.
Jenny Woo [00:01:36] So tell us, what does it mean to have trust and to be trusted?
Audra Irvine [00:01:41] I think that trust can be defined in different ways by different people. But at its core, essentially, trust is being able to rely on other people and for people to be able to rely on you. So it means that your actions are dependable and that your words are trustworthy. And that really comes with time.
Jenny Woo [00:02:01] Yeah. So tell me about the timepiece. This process. How do you foster trust in your students?
Audra Irvine [00:02:08] Yeah. So trust, I mean, that's difficult to have on day one with students. I think just like relationships between any two people or groups of people, it has to come with time and experience. And people need to feel that your actions aren't dependable and your words are trustworthy. And that can only come with experience that reflects that.
Jenny Woo [00:02:30] Tell me, what type of experience do you provide or help your students embark on to build trust within themselves and with you-- and with each other?
Audra Irvine [00:02:41] Yeah, I mean, this is a difficult topic. But I think that trust is something that we don't often associate with learning at the secondary level. You know, high school students-- people seem to or tend to focus on content, content, college preparation. But I think sometimes we forget or we let fall by the wayside. The way that trust has a huge motivational factor for students. When they feel like they trust their instructor, not just their content knowledge, but the fact that the instructor genuinely has their best interests at heart, then there's so much more likely to have more buy-in and be motivated to do well. And that doesn't necessarily mean blindly trusting content and not thinking critically. But I think that if you do it the right way, and you build mutual respect between student and instructor, you can lead them through their own self-inquiry in a way that helps them build trust in you, but also trust in themselves and their own ability to rationalize and judge. And that really builds confidence, too.
Jenny Woo [00:03:49] Yeah. You know, it's so interesting, developmentally speaking, because I think of my children who are still in lower-grade schools and kindergarten, and it's sort of-- during that age, they have such blind trust in the adult figure. Whether it's parents, teachers-- that love and that trust; “okay, whatever you say is right.” But as they grow older, they become these monsters of knowing it all.
Audra Irvine [00:04:16] Yeah.
Jenny Woo [00:04:17] You know, like smarty pants snapping back. And “why should I trust you?” My son would say, “you're not the boss of me,” which is good.
Audra Irvine [00:04:28] Right. But then until they had a certain age and that facade sort of crumbles and they realize, “wait, adults aren't totally infallible.” “Maybe my parents aren't totally right all the time.” And maybe “how do I know my teacher knows better than me?” They start to build their own sort of autonomy and sometimes get rebellious.
Jenny Woo [00:04:49] Yeah, how do you take advantage of that rebellion? I know it's so hard. How, I mean I can really see this as good skill sets, right? You want people to -- like you said, inquiry -- to ask questions. But when they are really in the moment of becoming those know-it-alls, talking back to you, and questioning what you're saying, how do you gain their confidence, their trust?
Audra Irvine [00:05:19] I mean, that's a great question. I think that instinctively or intuitively, most of us would want to push back harder. And maybe put your foot down more and tighten the reins a bit. But really, in my own experiences with students, is that you really don't want to push too hard because it can sort of have the opposite effect. And that, if you give them your trust in small ways and let them come to their own conclusions through their own experiences, that your words and your advice are reliable. And I think that most kids will come to that conclusion on their own. I mean, depending on the severity of the nature of the experience of the situation. You give them a little bit of wiggle room. I, at least, find that with students, “don't push too hard.” But if they are willing to listen at least, then they can come to the conclusion on their own after their own experiences. “Wait. Those words were reliable. That does make sense to me.” And it makes it more that you trust their own ability to reason and rationalize. And in turn, you get that pride at the end when they start to see that you do have their best interests at heart.
Jenny Woo [00:06:32] Yeah. You know, that's really interesting.
Jenny Woo [00:06:34] You said something sort of, in order to have them trust you, you have to give them the trust first.
Audra Irvine [00:06:41] Right.
Jenny Woo [00:06:44] It's such a reciprocal relationship.
Audra Irvine [00:06:45] Definitely.
Jenny Woo [00:06:46] And speaking of giving them the trust, it's also a component of helping them to trust in themselves.
Audra Irvine [00:06:53] Exactly.
Jenny Woo [00:06:54] And their own judgment--
Audra Irvine [00:06:55] Which can be so useful or can be so, such a confidence boost, really. I mean, how else do you get? How do you build self-confidence as an adult, as a parent, as a teacher, as a child? How do you build self-confidence without self-trust? That really only comes with experience. And the experience of, in the reward of senior judgment comes to positive fruition.
Jenny Woo [00:07:17] That's true.
Jenny Woo [00:07:18] And if you're always doing things or bossing the kids around, you don't give them that opportunity, as you mentioned. When they embark on that autonomies stage that they-- they don't know who they are. And what they can do their capability, right? So, I am actually curious, as a teacher in the classroom, how does that behaviorally manifest? So when-- the first day of school, you get tons of students in. Can you tell who are the ones that have that? I'm so curious.
Audra Irvine [00:07:51] Yeah. I mean, it definitely varies so much, but maybe not on the first day. But like we said developmentally at that age -- especially adolescence, early adolescence -- there's a bit of that questioning of authority and that's healthy. That's good. Especially as a science teacher, I want to make sure that I don't ever shoot down inquiry or discourage questioning authority. And I inherently come across as an authoritative figure just because of the nature of the classroom dynamic. I'm the instructor. And so, it's hard to walk the line between encouraging inquiry, but also getting them to trust my content knowledge and trust in the ways that I want them to come across and explore the content on their own. But like I said, it takes time. You probably can't tell much on the first day.
Jenny Woo [00:08:41] That's true. That’s fair.
Audra Irvine [00:08:43] But I think that on the first day, I make sure, and I think a lot of good teachers to make sure that you at least explicitly mention and it's OK to say, even if it comes across cheesy, that you care about them, you trust in them and that you have their interests at heart, you want them to do well, you're happy to have them in class and that they're such capable kids. If they roll their eyes on the first few days or even throughout the year. That's fine.
Audra Irvine [00:09:06] But you build that trust and you back up what you said on those days by continuing with reliable behaviors throughout the year. And letting them question and seek answers on their own. And not stifling questions or reacting to behavior that can easily come across as extremely insubordinate and sometimes disrespectful. It's hard, but it takes time.
Jenny Woo [00:09:32] Yeah. So that's taking the time piece. As parents, we’re stuck. It's going to be there. So any really usable advice we can take on a daily basis and how we can foster this trust? This trust, really actually in ourselves as parents. And the trust that we help our children see that we really have confidence in them, trusting them. How do we do that?
Audra Irvine [00:10:04] Honestly, for me, that feels like, that's probably toughest for parents because it involves self-compassion.
Audra Irvine [00:10:10] And parents are, most parents are so concerned with the well-being of their children that they forget sometimes that, “you're doing a good job, you're doing okay.” If you're constantly questioning yourself and your ability to parent and the decisions you're making on behalf of your kids, I can see how it would cause you to lose confidence. But I would say that you can harness the ability to constantly be proud of your kids. I mean, most parents are so beaming with pride for their kids in small and large ways. And if you can try to do what seems to be selfish by reminding yourself, that's a moment of pride for you, too, as a parent. That's a small victory for you, too. For you to take a minute and hold that hold onto that thought. “Hey, I did some good here. I'm doing all right. Look, look at this. Look at where you are raising this kid together. That's our kid.” If you can take that moment of self-compassion and pride as a small victory for you, too, I think it goes a long way for you and the kid. And the same with me and students to build confidence in my own ability and judgment in the classroom.
Audra Irvine [00:11:13] Same thing with parents and their own ability to loosen or tighten the reins depending on the situation. Same thing with the kids.
Audra Irvine [00:11:21] Your self-confidence with self-trust.
Jenny Woo [00:11:23] That is such good advice. I think as a parent, at the end of the day as I go through my categories of what I've done, my inventories of actions, and I always tend to operate from a place of deficit.
Audra Irvine [00:11:40] Like too hard on yourself.
Jenny Woo [00:11:41] Right. Like, I wish I would have done this. I had this on my list, but I never got to it. And these are really specifically toward my actions with my kids. But I love what you're saying is honoring and celebrating the stuff that you have done. Big or small. And so I think with that, I'm going to give everybody homework-- but good homework. And that tonight or just every night for the rest of this week or this month, try to reflect at the end of the day and just come up with one thing that you're really proud of yourself for doing with your children.
Audra Irvine [00:12:18] That's excellent advice.
Jenny Woo [00:12:19] Right?
Audra Irvine [00:12:20] Like for anyone, really. I mean, this is really a minute to reflect. We're all so busy all the time. And ambition is such a good thing. But you can really only benefit from the confidence in yourself. If you take a minute to reflect on it and pat yourself on the back. And that's not being selfish. That's being smart.
Jenny Woo [00:12:39] Yes. Yes. I love that. So we can all be smart together and with that. Thank you so much, Audra for being here.
Audra Irvine [00:12:45] Very well. Thanks for having me, Jenny. And thank you for tuning in to 52 Essential Conversations.