It’s all about relationships

David Brooks column yesterday is particularly thoughtful reflection on Obama’s education speech.  In particular, he focused on the importance of relationships:

We’ve spent years working on ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is the relationship between one student and one teacher. You ask a kid who has graduated from high school to list the teachers who mattered in his life, and he will reel off names. You ask a kid who dropped out, and he will not even understand the question. Relationships like that are beyond his experience.

It was Doc Littkey, Big Picture  that coined the phrase “rigor, relevance, and relationship.   Big Picture is network of schools that take seriously their mission of “one student at a time” with tailored internships and personalized learning

The big opportunity ahead of us is carving out room for next gen schools that combine the personalized relationships of a Big Picture school with personalized online learning.