Stories
Why Human Connection Matters More Than Ever
September 28, 2026
By Adam Hancock, Head of Lower School
Adapted from remarks shared with Lower School parents at Back to School Night
Our children are growing up in a world shaped by digital technology. Screens compete constantly for their attention. Artificial intelligence can produce a story in seconds. Almost any experience can be watched, simulated, or delivered on demand.
Against that backdrop, I believe deeply in something that can sound almost simple: children need authentic, in-person, human-centered education.
Nearly 200 years ago, education reformer Horace Mann argued that teachers were the foundation of a successful school, and that a textbook or curriculum was only as good as the educator bringing it to life. At Aspen Country Day, we share that conviction. The relationship between a teacher and a student remains the bedrock of an engaging and effective education.
“A textbook or curriculum is only as good as the educator in the room.” – Adam Hancock, Head of Lower School
We saw just how important those relationships were in 2020.
When schools suddenly moved online, technology allowed learning to continue, but it also revealed what technology could not replace. Children missed their teachers. They missed their friends. They missed being together.
There was something fundamentally different about learning through a screen, no matter how creative or dedicated the teacher on the other side of it might be. Children wanted the shared, in-person experience of school.
Six years later, the challenge is no longer remote school. Instead, technology is woven into nearly every aspect of our children’s lives.
And I think that raises important questions for those of us raising and educating children:
- Why take the risk of learning a new sport when you can watch someone else do it?
- Why pedal your own mountain bike down a dusty trail when you can experience the ride through someone else’s helmet cam?
- Why wrestle with your imagination to create a story when AI can write one for you in seconds?
To counter the frictionless pull of these technologies, I believe schools have an increasingly important responsibility to create experiences rooted in human connection.
Since our founding in 1969, Aspen Country Day has taken deliberate steps to do exactly that. We know children are more likely to take risks, engage deeply, and thrive when they feel known and seen and when they trust the people around them.
This summer, our Lower School faculty read Jennifer Breheny Wallace’s Mattering. Wallace describes mattering as both feeling valued and knowing that you add value at home, at school, and in the wider community.
That idea resonates deeply with me because I see it every day at ACDS.
Our students matter, and the adults on this campus demonstrate that in countless ways. We seek authentic connections with our students, but we also teach children how to build connections of their own.
Building a friendship is a learned skill, just like carpentry or tennis. It needs to be taught, experienced, and practiced.
We teach children how to listen well. How to disagree without breaking a friendship. How to share an idea respectfully during a classroom discussion. How to apologize and how to forgive. We teach them to ask good questions and probe for deeper meaning. We teach them how to sit across from another person and have a conversation, face to face.
And we give them opportunities to struggle.
There is enormous value in wrestling with a complex idea, making a mistake and trying again, finding the words to express your own thoughts, and discovering that you can do something difficult.
That productive struggle cannot be outsourced to an algorithm. Neither can the important work of learning how to live in community.
“Technology will continue to change. Our children will need to understand it and learn to use it thoughtfully. But I believe the more technologically sophisticated their world becomes, the more important these fundamentally human experiences will be.”
A teacher who knows you. A friend who listens. A conversation that changes your thinking. A challenge that requires persistence. The satisfaction of discovering your own voice.
That is the kind of education I believe children need right now.
And it is the kind of education we work to provide every day at Aspen Country Day.