ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the significance of relationship in teaching and learning. It illuminates three central Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) concepts that serve as building blocks and, more broadly, connected teaching: relationship as a site and source for learning, power-over and power-with, and relational clarity. Connected teaching consists of and creates five elements that drive learning: energy, knowledge, sense of worth, action, and desire for more connection. Readers familiar with RCT will recognize these as The Five Good Things, as first identified by Miller and Stiver. These components are both essence and outcome as they form the heart of what goes on in connected teaching and are further generated by meaningful interactions and relationships. In growth-fostering interactions we must strive for a balance of connection and relational clarity. When we as faculty establish and teach from a place of relational clarity, navigating the magnetisms of connection and separation, we cocreate a space for significant learning and growth.
