Tenuous Trust and Community Building

As per usual, I had a whole blog post idea last night that I was going to write, but then I had some hmm..."discussions" with people on Twitter and now I have a completely other thing to reflect on in the post today which is building trust. 

There are many ways that folk define what a trauma-informed practice should look like in terms of principles. One that is often shared regardless of context is the need for trust. In order to support and design practices and engagements that are aware of trauma responses and response possibilities there needs to be some sort of trust built. A lot of conversations around pedagogy centre on trust, and the tension between exerting power of positionality as an instructor as opposed to fostering a relationship of trust. Sometimes this binary is not so simple, but power and trust are really two concepts that work in relation in many spaces. 

Often the question in relation to teaching and learning is, so how do we build trust? Trust is something that is strengthened over time, so what happens when you don't have time to build the trust, and maybe this is an acute situation?  Framing and approaching engagement in a way that realizes that trust is an integral part of the relationship building is one way. This is why we often go back to the syllabus as a trust-building document. It is the first document that learners will see and the first look at your course and you as an instructor. That document can say a lot about what to expect or not expect in a learning environment. Policies that are present or not present build trust. Assignment instructions build trust. Equity statements and discussion ground rules build trust. As that trust is outlined so is a sense of community. It says this is a place where we can share and be together. This is a place where we can learn from one another. This is a place where you can exchange resources. But that trust can be just as easily broken if an expectation is not fulfilled. 

We all have communities we trust in some way. Some are physical community spaces and some are virtual spaces. Some communities of trust are small, maybe 2 or 3 people, and some communities of trust are larger like thousands. Yesterday I was faced with discomfort in my community of trust. I go to Twitter because that is my community; it is place where someone like me who has lived alone for 17 months during a pandemic and not yet fully vaccinated because my provincial system forgets about people like me (but maybe next week vax 2, fingers crossed) can go to find people who share my interests, people who are just as passionate about things as I am, people who are looking for the same kind of systemic change I am. But every once in a while I receive reminders of how this is not a community of trust for a whole lot of people. That folk living in different positionalities may see this place as not a place of community, trust, or empowerment, but in fact a place of fear, lack of safety, and violence. It is important to remember that trust in a person or a space is always tenuous, and I think I was getting too comfortable in thinking this was a safe space so the reminder was good and necessary, but also icky.

The same goes for educational spaces. You can design and engage in a way that seems safe and trust building to you, but that doesn't mean that everyone will see it that way. No one's experience of a space or of education is the same. There are no pedagogical monoliths even if others may be saying there are. 

In a pandemic where trust and community are so very important, especially for those that the narratives often forget, it is also great to remember the tenuousness of trust and to use any affordances of privilege one may have to ensure that a community is maintained for others and more opportunities to feel empowered to share if comfortable happen. 

So for now I will use the block button in order to get back to a community of trust that I need  to support me through this time, and not have to silence my engagement and pointing out of inequities because for some individualism is more important than a collective community building. To the Twitter community I engage with regularly, thank you for being so wonderful, I appreciate you.