Intimate worlds where students become explorers

Every successful educational initiative of which I’m aware aims at strengthening personal bonds by building strong systems of support in the schools. The best preschools create intimate worlds where students become explorers and attentive adults are close at hand.

David L. Kirp in his New York Times essay [Teaching is Not a Business explains why our focus should be on the relationship between students and teachers, not on setting up schools as businesses. This certainly aligns with the work John Hattie has done.

In fact, in his interview with BBC4, John Hattie claims that while academies and other business-like schools show some improvement in the first 6 months, after that they perform no better than ordinary state schools.