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It keeps hitting me over and over.  Education must rely primarily on relationship rather than information.  If you ask a middle or high school teacher what the biggest struggle they have is, they will likely say motivating students.  I think this can only be sustainably accomplished through relationship, that is, trust.  Students must trust the teacher, have faith in the teacher, in order to learn well from that teacher.

Managing a learning environment such as this poses its own unique challenges, but there is one simple technique, which makes everything else fall into place: love and respect your students and they will love and respect you back. With the underlying feeling of trust and respect this provides, students quickly realize the importance of their role as co-creators of the learning environment and they begin to take responsibility for their own education.           Michael Wesch