Cassidy Downs, Faculty Focus, Where to Go From “I Don’t Know”: Building Trust Through Authenticity (May 15, 2026)

In this terrific essay, Downs explores tools for responding to a student question when you do not know the answer. Her introduction sets us up well for reconsidering a moment most of us experience with anxiety.

In education, there is an unwritten expectation that to be in the profession is to know things, know them well, and at the drop of a hat. 

For a teacher it’s daunting to stand in front of 30+ students, each staring expectantly at you, waiting for your words of wisdom on a tough question. But what if in the face of your years of education, hard work, and experience, you find that the only nugget of anti-wisdom you can come up with is “I don’t know”? 

Fear not. Even though there is always at least one student in the class willing to heckle the teacher for a misstep, we the adults are always much harsher critics to ourselves than most students (right??) and the biases working against us are sharper in our own minds than in others’. 

Downs’ recommendations include: asking clarifying questions, providing reassurance that students will get an answer, and fostering collaboration in analyzing and answering the question.

Her core recommendation is that we accept that we might not know everything, be authentic, and model what the kind of learner we hope all our students are/become.

It’s worth a read.