Over the past week, I have been talking a lot about relationships and trust, which I think are the heart of every school that cares for the people inside of it.
Over the past few days, I have been thinking deeply about the importance of proactive communication, communication that centers the needs of families and children, not just principals and educators.
As a person who has taught dozens of educators at every level of their career, this is something I stress time and time again in my work—it is better to be proactive than reactive. Educators are not always good at this because they often want to control the narrative so that they appear to be domain experts. But, no one has all the answers in schools and control is overrated.
When educators fail to communicate proactively and openly it can set off a cascade of challenges that could have been easily addressed earlier.
As I always say to any educator who will listen to me, it is better to be ahead of the wave than behind it.
Let me give you a concrete example.
A school has two math teachers.
One teacher emails families to inform them that their children have an upcoming assessment and then emails families when they have graded and returned the assessment.
This first email, which communicates the upcoming assessment, allows families to check-in, patiently and calmly, with their kids to 1. Make sure that their children know about the upcoming assessment and 2. Ask if they feel prepared or need support to be ready for it.
The second email, informing them that their children’s assessments have been returned, allows families to 1. Check in with their children to ask how they felt or did on the assessment and 2. Catch any challenges or questions in real-time, ideally, in partnership with the teacher. The teacher provides families with the information that they need to support their kids, proactively.
The second teacher does not explain that their students have math assessments and this teacher, for whatever reason, does not give the assessments back to their students, nor do they communicate this with their families.
Weeks into the school year, a family has concerns about their child’s math performance and asks for a meeting. The family then finds out that their child has been taking assessments in math all year but has never seen these assessment. Understandably, the family is upset about this because this was not communicated to them.
Now, the school and the family is communicating in a reactive manner about something that should have been communicated proactively.
The differences are profound.
The first teacher sets up a communication style that brings families into the fold, as partners and participants in the work.
The second teacher sets up a communication style that keeps families in the dark, creating schisms between two groups, which should actually be working together.
And when the family finds out that their child has been receiving assessments all year, assessments that they did not know about, it sets up an antagonistic style of communication that is difficult for anyone to break through.
And perhaps most importantly, it breaks trust—trust between schools and teachers, trust between educators and families, and of course, trust between educators and students.
Proactive communication does the opposite. It builds, cultivates, and sustains trust. And as anyone can tell you, it is much easier to build trust than restore it.
I’m wondering what examples you might have like this from your schools and communities?