The year is A 100 year-old man lies on his death bed, contemplating his long life. His children, grand children, and great grand children surround him. He lived a good life. There have been good times--he has accomplished much and he had many experiences that he’d prefer to forget. One of his grandson’s looks in his eyes and asks, “Grandpa, is there anything you regret in life?” The old man closes his eyes and weeps. Then, with a deep wistful longing he says, “I just wish, with all my heart that I would have....”

“At the end of the day, both staff and structures need to support student learning. Beyond all of these tangible elements of successful schooling, young people have to believe that they can succeed in order to put forth the effort to do so. When teachers have little opportunity to come to know their students well, and students have little opportunity to relate to any adult in the school on an extended, personal level, it should not be surprising that factory model schools create virtual chasms of the cracks into which students can fall.” -- Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Educational Researcher

Teachers perceive themselves to be very caring people who went into teaching to give something to youth. Most are initially shocked at the degree to which students felt adults inside schools did not care for them. Many teachers struggle as they try to figure out how their attention had been focused away from students. A majority of teachers feel they were pressured to cover the curriculum, meet bureaucratic demands and asked to do too many activities unrelated to the students in their classrooms. There is little time in the day to actually relate with students.

Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at the Stanford University School of Education, where she launched the School Redesign Network, and the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute. She is author or editor of more than a dozen books and more than 300 articles on education policy and practice. Her work focuses on school restructuring, teacher education, and educational equity.