Student-Teacher Trust and Web 2.0

One of my favorite psychology professors once said, "Trust isn't earned. It's given." In my personal experience, this is especially true when it comes to kids and teens. They want to be trusted first, before they decide how they will approach a relationship.

In a study on teen use of Web resources in school by Charles Crook (2012), the students expressed frustration with being expected to use the internet for certain school assignments, but then not being able to access the very websites they needed in order to complete those assignments. Their relationships with their teachers were eroded because of the lack of trust on the part of the adults. Teens want to be trusted, and will most often rise to the occasion when trust is extended.

Access to the web and all its resources isn't going away, nor is the widespread access that teens have to the devices that connect them to the web. As much as we may think we can control their access and use with blocks and restrictions, this is not an adequate or appropriate way to serve our teens.

What we, the adults who serve teens, need to do when it comes to student internet use is:
1) teach them about appropriate and safe use of technology,
2) have open dialogue about its pros and cons, its pitfalls and dangers, and its many benefits, and
3) to extend our trust when it comes to their use of the internet both inside and outside of school.

When it comes to relationships between teens and adults, it is always the responsibility of the adult to set the tone of the relationship. I say, let's give them our support and our trust (within reason) and let them fly.



Here's the reference for the article mentioned above:

Crook, C. (2012). The 'digital native' in context: tensions associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school setting. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 63-80. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.577946