Reply to comment

It is an interesting idea to think about both teachers and students serving in different roles. For example, students are powerful teachers of each other, often more powerful than we adults are of them. It seems important to use the power of peer influence as a postive by having them teach things to each other, whether it is older to younger, or peer to peer.

Also, it's clear from all sorts of research, that the single most important factor in determining a child's success is one committed, interested adult in his/her life (I heard this fact from a lecture by the head of a Harvard School of Education program called 'Risk and Prevention') This supports the importance of teachers being personally involved and invested with students (but we knew that!)

It does seem really worth thinking about the diverse roles that students can play in their own education and their own schools; and the diverse roles teachers can play; and trying to be creative about those roles. Also what we know about brain development, I think, supports the idea that brains learn best in a social interaction context, so using kids to teach each other, having learning involve interaction, has to be good.