When the Relationship Comes First

Through the many small interactions that make up a school day, students are learning who we are alongside what we teach. Does this teacher know me? Do they respect me? Do they believe I am capable? And if things between us become difficult, what happens then?

For boys in particular, a growing body of research suggests that relationships are not simply a welcome addition to effective teaching; they are fundamental to it. The practical question for educators is how, amid the many demands of contemporary schools, we keep relationships at the forefront of our practice.

Fortunately, we do not have to answer that question on instinct alone. Two significant bodies of research offer complementary ways of thinking about the relationship between young people and the adults who teach, coach, mentor, and care for them.

Michael Reichert and Richard Hawley’s research into boys as relational learners, presented in Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys and I Can Learn from You, demonstrates the central role of teacher-student relationships in boys’ engagement with school. Their later study drew on interviews with students and teachers in 35 schools across six countries. More recently, developmental psychologist David Yeager’s 10 to 25 offers another lens for understanding why relationships with trusted adults matter so much during adolescence. A particularly important point of connection between their work is the invitation to reconsider how adults exercise authority with young people.

Reichert and Hawley identify relational practices through which teachers successfully reach boys. Their research describes eight “relational strategies”: reaching out to students, demonstrating subject mastery, maintaining high standards, responding to personal interests and talents, discovering shared interests or characteristics, accommodating opposition, and revealing appropriate vulnerability. These are not techniques for making learning easier or expectations lower. Rather, they describe ways of establishing trust through which meaningful learning can occur.

Reichert develops this idea further in How to Raise a Boy, where he argues that connection must remain at the centre of adult authority. As he writes, “when exercising authority becomes an end in itself, caregivers have effectively disconnected from the boy.” The distinction is important. Authority and relationship are not opposites. The question is how authority is exercised, and whether a young person experiences it within a relationship characterized by respect, trust, consistency, and care.

Yeager’s work helps us understand why this matters developmentally. His research draws attention to young people’s heightened sensitivity to status and respect and to their growing desire for agency and independence. 10 to 25 describes how, beginning around puberty, young people become particularly attuned to socially rewarding experiences such as pride, admiration, and respect, while also becoming highly sensitive to social pain. His “mentor mindset” offers adults a useful response: hold young people to genuinely high standards while providing the support, respect, and confidence that communicate our belief in their capacity to meet them.

Seen this way, a strong teacher-student relationship has a clear educational purpose. It creates the conditions in which challenge, feedback, encouragement, disagreement, persistence, and academic risk-taking become possible. Relationship does not mean removing difficulty from a young person’s path. Nor does it mean avoiding accountability. At its best, relational teaching brings high expectations and high support together. Yeager identifies precisely this combination of high standards accompanied by high support as central to the mentor mindset.

This year, Crescent School has the unusual opportunity to learn directly from both Reichert and Yeager. Dr. Reichert serves as Crescent’s inaugural Research Fellow, advising our faculty as we deepen our understanding of boys’ engagement, well-being, belonging, and emotional literacy. Dr. Yeager will join us as the keynote speaker for our Men of Character Speaker Series, bringing his research on the mentor mindset into conversation with parents, educators, and members of the wider community.

These opportunities reflect a broader commitment of the Crescent Centre for Boys’ Education: to learn from strong research, examine it thoughtfully in the context of our own practice, and share what we discover with others who care about the education and development of boys. Through our online resources, the Men of Character Speaker Series, and community events, we hope to contribute to a broader conversation about how adults in young people’s lives can help them become increasingly capable, responsible, compassionate, and engaged.

There is urgency to this work, but there is also something reassuring about what the research asks of us. Young people need adults who know them well enough to challenge them, respect them enough to listen to them, and care about them enough to remain connected when things become difficult. Reichert and Hawley’s work places productive relationships at the centre of boys’ learning, while Yeager’s research similarly argues against choosing between demanding standards and meaningful support. This does not require us to choose between relationship and rigour, or between care and accountability. The strongest relationships make both possible.

We want our boys to grow into men of character. The relationships we build with them are where that work begins.