Trust Matters: Leadership For Successful Schools

Description

Make your school soar by escalating trust between teachers, students, and families

Trust is an essential element in all healthy relationships, and the relationships that exist in your school are no different. How can your school leaders or teachers cultivate trust? How can your institution maintain trust once it is established? These are the questions addressed and answered in Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools, 2nd Edition. The book delves into the helpful research that has been conducted on the topic of trust in school. Although rich with research data, Trust Matters also contains practical advice and strategies ready to be implemented. This second edition expands upon the role of trust between teachers and students, teachers and administrators, and schools and families.

Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools also covers a range of sub-topics relevant to trust in school. All chapters in the text have questions for reflection and discussion. Engaging chapters such as "Teachers Trust One Another" and "Fostering Trust with Students" have thought-provoking trust-building questions and activities you can use in the classroom or in faculty meetings. This valuable resource:

• Examines ways to cultivate trust
• Shares techniques and practices that help maintain trust
• Advises leaders of ways to include families in the school's circle of trust
• Addresses the by-products of betrayed trust and how to restore it

With suspicion being the new norm within schools today, Trust Matters is the book your school needs to help it rise above. It shows just how much trust matters in all school relationships--administrator to teacher; teacher to student; school to family--and in all successful institutions.

Author description

MEGAN TSCHANNEN-MORAN is a professor of educational policy, planning, and leadership at the College of William and Marys School of Education. She has written several pieces on trust, including the successful first edition of Trust Matters , and is considered a leading scholar on the subject of trust in educational settings. She is the coauthor of Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time .

Table of contents

Preface ix Acknowledgments xvii Chapter 1 A Matter of Trust 1 Meaning Well 1 Doing Well 6 Trust and Schools 8 Trust Matters 12 Key Points about a Matter of Trust 14 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 14 Chapter 2 Defining Trust 17 What Is Trust? 19 Differentiated Trust 39 Trust and Hierarchy 40 Putting It into Action 43 Key Points about Defining Trust 44 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 45 Chapter 3 Fostering Trust 47 Initial Trust 48 Factors That Influence Developing Trust 53 Authentic and Optimal Trust 64 Putting It into Action 66 Key Points about Fostering Trust 69 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 70 Chapter 4 Betrayal 71 What Is Betrayal? 72 The Keep-the-Peace Principal 79 A Debilitating Culture of Distrust 85 Putting It into Action 94 Key Points about Betrayal 95 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 96 Chapter 5 Revenge 97 The Dynamics of Revenge 97 The Overzealous Reformer 102 A Culture of Control 110 Rules That Facilitate 117 Putting It into Action 119 Key Points about Revenge 120 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 121 Chapter 6 Teachers Trusting One Another 123 Building a Professional Learning Community at Brookside 125 Faculty Trust and the Five Facets 128 The Payoffs of Faculty Trust 140 Putting It into Action 150 Key Points about Teachers Trusting One Another 151 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 152 Chapter 7 Cultivating Trust with Students 153 Teachers' Trust in Students 154 Students' Trust in Teachers 160 Earning Student Trust 167 Understanding Teacher Aggression 179 Putting It into Action 183 Key Points about Cultivating Trust with Students 184 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 184 Chapter 8 Building Bridges of Trust with Families 187 The Facets of Family-School Trust 189 Trust and Family Engagement 203 Fostering Trust with Families 214 Putting It into Action 217 Key Points about Building Bridges of Trust with Families 219 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 219 Chapter 9 Restoring Broken Trust 221 Trust Repair 222 Factors That Facilitate Restoring Trust 229 Creating a Context for Trust Repair 238 Whole-School Conversations about Trust 243 Putting It into Action 247 Key Points about Restoring Broken Trust 248 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 249 Chapter 10 Becoming a Trustworthy Leader 251 Trustworthy School Leadership 254 Productive Schools 264 Putting It into Action 266 Key Points about Becoming a Trustworthy Leader 268 Questions for Reflection and Discussion 269 Appendixes A. Measures of Trust in Schools 271 B. Additional Resources 285 References 289 About the Author 303 Index 305