Dr Bruce Addison, Dean of Curriculum and Scholarship I must admit that when I sat down to write this article many potential themes emerged. Slow learning was one. Trust another. Deconstructing the simplistic analysis associated with national and international benchmarking was tempting. These themes are important to me but this time I wanted to write on a topic that is fundamental to my daily work. To me the magically affective space existing between teacher, student and learning is something worthy to explore, recognise and celebrate. Educational theorist Max van Manen has done much work in this field. To him the relational space existing between teacher and student forms the essence of his concept of pedagogy. For van Manen a pedagogical relationship requires a teacher to possess: …a sense of vocation, moral fibre, a loving and caring disposition, a sense of responsibility, intuition, a passion for knowledge, tactful sensitivity, humour, vitality and hope, maturity, an ability to be…