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School for Humans
Holding students’ attention in digital age begins with trust. Teachers need space to build it
With the challenges posed by online distractions and fake news, it is the teacher-student relationship that drives learning.
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Amid competing noises, a warm, trusting relationship with a teacher is among the most valuable resources students have to make sense of a confusing world.
ST ILLUSTRATION: CEL GULAPA
Robert Pianta
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In my first job as a special education teacher in Connecticut in the US, I taught a cohort of more than a dozen 6th graders (11 to 12 years old), nearly all boys. By the end of the first year, I realised something had changed.
I was no longer worrying about disruptive behaviour which had plagued the class previously; my students were engaged and learning. The turning point wasn’t any new technique I had employed – it was trust.
