Trust – STORIES FROM SCHOOL AZ

Do we trust our students, colleagues, and admin? Building trust is incredibly important in the classroom. We all know this. We need to create a community that is safe and trustworthy for our students so we can have connections with students and help them achieve their academic and personal goals. We work on these relationships and goals each day. We build background knowledge about our students and continue to do this throughout the year. We have been told all of our careers that this is the most important thing to do in the classroom. This is also true when dealing with co-workers and administrators as well.

I also want to be in a place that feels safe and work with people I trust with my educational and personal goals. I want to work with colleagues that are great listeners and seek first to understand. I have been fortunate in the last 23 years to have worked with some truly wonderful people. Early in my career, I was surrounded by caring co-workers and understanding admin. I started dedicating my life to education way back in 1999. I was just young and took these people for granted. I feel as time has gone on and the climate of education has changed, so have the trusting relationships with my co-workers and admin. Later in my career, I worked in schools where I could not talk to colleagues because they would run and talk to other people about whatever it is I said or was feeling at that moment. It was kind of sad to know that I could not trust that co-worker with my feelings or goals. She was my teammate. I was supposed to trust her completely. It was a guarded trust. Maybe some of our students feel the same way about us. Do we make students feel safe in our classrooms to share their lives with us, their joy, and their struggle? If not, we need to re-evaluate and reflect on how to make our students feel as though they can trust us.

Do we have a trusting relationship with our admin as well? Do we trust our administrators’ professional judgment? Do they listen to us? Do they look out for our best interests and our students as well? I am working in a very healthy environment currently. My current administrators are great at listening. I feel as though I can give them my honest opinion about the vision, mission, and goals of the school. They care about me as a human being, which is refreshing, especially since the demands on teachers and administrators have increased over the last few years. I want my students to feel the same way about me. I want my students to have a voice (respectful of course) in my classroom. I want them to know I care about them as human beings. These relationships are being modeled at my current school by the admin to the teachers, teachers to teachers, and teachers to students. 

Respect and trust need to go hand in hand. How do you build trust in your classroom and your school? Is this being modeled at your school by your administrators?

Image from shrm.com

Sarah Kirchoff

Sarah Kirchoff is an instructional coach in Mesa Public Schools. She has over 20 years of experience in early childhood education. She began her teaching career way back in August 1999, when everyone was worried about Y2K. She did not even have computers in her classroom at that time! Since then, she has taught first grade for four years, preschool for three years, second grade for two years and kindergarten for twelve years. She has worked for three different school districts during her teaching career. During this time, she has been able to identify which grade she found to be the most enjoyable. Her greatest teaching passion is for kindergarten. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Arizona State University and a master’s degree in Elementary Education from Northern Arizona University. She was teacher of the year at her school in the 2019-2020 school year. She became a National Board Certified Teacher as an Early Childhood Generalist in December of 2020. She currently serves on numerous committees at her school including school site council, the instructional leadership team, and the culture and climate team. She is a mentor teacher at her school and has mentored numerous interns and student teaching candidates. When she is not busy with school commitments, she spends time with her family. She has a husband who is also a teacher, and four children. Two of which are students at NAU and two that are in high school. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, reading books and spending time with family, friends and her two dogs.

Children need a teacher that is always advocating for them, socially, emotionally, and academically. Sarah wants every student she encounters to realize their potential and she is willing to help in any way she can. The impact early childhood educators have on students reaches far beyond their younger years. Sarah wants to leave a positive impact on her students so they can continue to have wonderful educational experiences beyond her classroom and school.