ABSTRACT
When people think about nurturing relationships in education, they need to think broadly. People certainly want to focus on relationships students have, either with each other or with their teachers. That is the low-hanging fruit, the obvious stuff, albeit critical to school health, effectiveness, and character development. But they also have to think more broadly, which includes thinking beyond the physical boundaries of the school and to a broader set of school stakeholder categories. In Educating for Character , Tom Lickona reports on a brilliant strategy designed by Kim McConnell at Walt Disney Elementary School in San Ramon, California. Rather than doing what most teachers do at the beginning of the year, in other words preparing and delivering an autobiographical presentation of some sort to the students, this innovative teacher started the year by inviting the students to interview her about anything they wanted to know.
