Parents trust teachers

The June issue of Reader’s Digest magazine included a poll listing the 100 most trusted people in America. I was completely surprised that “my own child’s current teacher” is number three on the list (behind “my own doctor” and “my own spiritual adviser”).
I don’t feel at all trusted in my professional life. I feel that state legislators want to unfairly evaluate me, anticipating failure; local politicians want to lower my pay, devaluing my work; and school policy makers want to remove me from instructional decision making, discounting my ability and experience.
But then, I thought about who answered the Reader’s Digest poll – not legislators, supervisors, or administrators – but parents. And trust is the very word I use when I talk about my relationship with my (students’) parents. Every year, my parents learn that they can trust me. They learn that I will be consistent in discipline, work hard at instruction, and stay fair with evaluations. They can (and do) trust me to care about their children academically, socially, and emotionally.
So this is a word of encouragement to educators that our parents are not our detractors, a word of thanks to our parents for the honor of your trust, and a request that parents pass on their confidence in our worth and ability to administrators, supervisors, and legislators.