Education

Voices: A Matter of Trust

February 01, 1994 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

With five years of empirical classroom observation behind me, I know the honor system works. But I hadn’t thought much about why until I saw Mel Gibson’s movie The Man Without a Face.

In the character of Justin McCloud, Gibson appears before a child-welfare bureaucrat. A lawyer asks why he hasn’t verified something a boy has told him. Gibson replies that a teacher can’t teach trust unless he first trusts his student. Even the lawyer can’t argue with that.

But can we ever really trust kids? In a study released a year and a half ago by Michael Josephson, founder of the private Josephson Institute for Ethics, 61 percent of high school students admitted to cheating on an exam at least once. A survey reported in The Boston Globe put the number at 75 percent.

I have no scientific surveys, only my experience in the classroom. I have concluded that the more opportunities students have to make their own choices, the more frequently they choose what’s right.

During my student-teaching days, I had a creative, pragmatic master teacher. Tired of students coming to class without pen, pencil, or paper and then using that as an excuse to idle rather than to work, she maintained a small store in her desk from which students could purchase necessities. When I got my own classroom, I did what every good beginner does: I borrowed her idea. I set aside a cabinet at the rear of the classroom labeled “Mack’s Student Store.’' What I hadn’t counted on were continual interruptions: “Mrs. Mack, do you have change for a 20?’' “Mrs. Mack, I need a pen, but I don’t have any money.’'

So the store went to the honor system. Next to the supplies, I kept a small amount of change and a stack of blank IOUs. The students didn’t believe it. “You want me to make my own change?’' “I can leave an IOU?’'

Once assured the system was for real, students availed themselves of it often, as if continuously to test my sincerity. There was some minor pilferage and a few bowed heads during discussions on the damage to self-esteem caused by stealing. But the payoff was far greater than the few dollars it cost me. At the end of the store’s first year, a student wrote in a journal: “I didn’t believe you when you told me to help myself. Nobody trusts me.... What I learned in your class is that I’m OK.’' And people ask why I teach.

When I give homework, I expect it to be done, and students respond to the roll call with the number of points they think they earned for it. Forewarned that it could be embarrassing to have claimed completion only to have a lie discovered later on, they answer honestly--mostly. The students take responsibility for their own efforts, unable to blame the teacher for a low grade they assigned themselves. They learn that the most important assessment is an honest self-assessment.

A few semesters ago, in my senior writing class, two students turned in nearly identical essays. One put his on top of the stack, the other near the bottom. (Students do not always give teachers a lot of credit for diligence and brainpower.) It was B work--both of them--but I wrote the following note in lieu of a grade: “Dear Steve and Bill, you can either share the B grade--40 points each--or the one who wrote the paper can have the B and the other a zero. Your choice.’'

The following day, a very sheepish Bill confessed. He urged me to give Steve the B because he had earned it. He would take the fall because, he said, that’s what he had earned.

I’ve read plenty of reports about teenagers and their lack of morals and ethics. And I’m no Pollyanna implying that an honor system for grades will change the future of the world. But perhaps we need to focus less on our kids and more on the dysfunctional families many live in, the frightening neighborhoods they walk through, the corrupt government officials and worldwide ethnic wars they read about, the heroes accused of beating wives and molesting children. It’s unrealistic to expect our kids to be any better than their role models. If we provided an atmosphere in which adults are trustworthy, and the kids are trusted, we wouldn’t have any more fears for the next generation than our parents had for ours.

The author teaches English at Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School in Los Angeles.

A version of this article appeared in the February 01, 1994 edition of Teacher Magazine as Voices: A Matter of Trust

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: March 13, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 21, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 7, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: January 31, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read