Week Two

(Blog due Sunday, July 14th)

Trait: Trustworthiness.

How does a person gain trust? Is it through telling people that you are trustworthy and that's that? Or is it through never giving people a reason to be mistrustful of you? While people might believe you for a little while if you're constantly telling them what to think of you, we all know that actions speak louder than words and, eventually, they'll know whether they can really trust you or not. So how do we show that we are, in fact, worthy of others' trust?  

It's a matter of being ethical and holding yourself to a high moral standard. Don't lie, cheat, steal, or throw anyone under the bus to get ahead. Be fair to other people, listen to them, respect their right to have an opinion that you may not agree with, and don't share confidences of theirs with other people. The old adage of "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" is a helpful way of keeping yourself in check.  

Activity:

Monti: Discuss trustworthiness with the students. Ask them to define what 'trust' and 'being trustworthy' means to them. Do they consider themselves to be trustworthy?

Jackie: Engage the students in conversation about how they know if someone is trustworthy upon first meeting him/her. What markers do they use: body language, things they say (and if things they say, what things, what cues)?

Hiro: Engage the students in conversation about trust and if they've ever been in a situation where they broke someone's trust or someone broke their trust. How did the situation make them feel? What did they learn from it?

Blog Post Exercise (2-3 paragraphs):

Imagine one of the students from AELP comes to you upset because he/she entrusted sensitive information to someone whom they believed was his/her friend here at camp and he/she's just found out that the information is spreading through the whole camp.  

Using what you've learned from your conversations with the kids (citing quotes from the kids with whom you spoke), what would you do to resolve the situation? How would you handle it? Would you hold a meeting with the students and, if so, what would you say at the meeting?