It’s tempting to focus on faculty- and teacher-student relationships at the core of schools. And for good reason. Educators remain the leading in-school driver of student success. But it turns out that there are other relationships beyond that core that can offer real value to students and can bolster outcomes for institutions. The reality is that teachers shouldn’t go it alone.
Beyond clear academic research on teacher impact on academic outcomes, other research from youth development and social capital scholars points to relationships more broadly as core determinants of students’ chances of getting by and getting ahead. The takeaway is clear: students will most benefit from a web of connections supporting their healthy development, academic success, and access to opportunity.
Here are three types of connections that schools could be forging to expand students’ webs of relationships:
Senior citizens as tutors, career mentors… and roommates?
At the same time that the country is witnessing mounting levels of loneliness and isolation among aging populations, schools are facing an acute need for access to caring adults and mentors among young people. Unfortunately, squaring that supply and demand (in both directions) is not a given. In fact, many of our systems and cultural institutions—from schools, to neighborhoods, to senior living facilities—have inadvertently segregated young and old.
Luckily a number of programs, like those chronicled in Marc Freedman’s great book How to Live Forever, are aiming for an integrated win-win. For example, at Judson Manor in Cleveland, graduate students live alongside senior citizens. Others like Nesterly have taken this notion of cohabitation a step further, creating a two-sided tech platform to match older residents with graduate students, all of whom are eager for affordable housing—and company.
Industry experts as inspirers, mentors, and professional contacts
