Destroying Trust

Teachers sometimes distrust students. Students sometimes distrust teachers. Perhaps that last bit is my fault.

I taught for 26 years. Needless to say, and please forgive my going on and saying it because whenever you preface something Needless to say you have to go ahead and say it anyway (it's a law), I lectured with some regularity. It's a teaching standard. During one lecture, I went and threw my students' trust in me under the bus.

While teaching a section of American history on the labor union movement I was speaking of a few early union leaders. One of whom, Samuel Gompers, was an organizer for the American Federation of Labor, or AFL. Rambling along in talking to the students, who were actually eagerly taking notes that day as I droned on, I said something like, "Then we have Samuel Gompers, the founder of the AFL, the American Football League." The pupils dutifully scribbled that down.

A minute later I paused to explain, "Gompers was not the head of the American Football League. He started the American Federation of Labor."

The sighs and the "Aw mans" were audible and exasperated. I must confess that I was far too proud of myself.

Unfortunately I caused an entire generation of learners to not trust instructors. I'm sorry.