Win-win!

Young people get what they need, society gets what it needs

As we move more deeply into a prefigurative culture – where the young best represent the future – then two things are happening.  First, young people are increasingly rejecting what adults, imbued in the culture which is slowly dying, are telling them to do: work hard, pass your exams and you will have a good life.  Second, they are hungry for the capabilities which they will need to co-create and face up to a new future – twenty-first century skills.

There is a paradox, society does need young people to acquire the knowledge and skills which underpin our basic processes, so there is some continuity as we advance towards the future.  At the same time young people must reject what they are being told to do.

How to resolve this paradox?

Legitimate teacherly authority resolves this paradox where the teacher has both subject knowledge and life skills (=twenty-first century skills) and wants to teach both.

Although it is the life skills that are valued by the student, causing them to accept their role in the social dynamic that teacherly authority represents, they will pay attention to wherever their teacher directs it, which of course is towards the subject knowledge.

With very high teacherly authority, students will willingly do their best work – which is the definition of high engagement and the best conditions for learning to take place.

Legitimate teacherly authority creates a win-win: society gets the continuity in knowledge and skills it needs, and students gain the capacities that they need.

Oh, and teacher wellbeing is enhanced.  So, win-win-win.

I presented webinars on 3rd, 17th and 31st March where I made the linkage between student feedback, student engagement and teacherly authority, what we mean by teacherly authority in the modern world and how to strengthen and develop it (you can replay the webinars here, here and here, respectively). 

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

• To purchase a copy of Red Brain Blue Brain, Student Feedback or Why We Teach go here