Relationships, relationships, relationships!

What type of relationship really matters

About 40% of teachers see teaching is all about ‘relationships, relationships, relationships’.  Of that 40% about 5% have high levels of legitimate teacherly authority such that students willingly do their best work, and these teachers have a lifelong impact on their students.  In Why We Teach I called these teachers ‘Enlightened Teachers’ and described how they had got to this level of performance despite the system, not because of it.

The balance of the teachers in this 40% group I called ‘Motivated Teachers’.  The concept of teacherly authority now provides a pathway for these teachers to achieve the same level of performance as their enlightened colleagues.

Teacherly authority is a way to structure the relationship teacher-student in such a way that students willingly agree to pay full attention to their teacher and wherever their teacher directs the students’ attention.  The net result is students willingly doing their best work.

In this blog I quoted from Why We Teach “I have often asked principals: “What would your school be like if, rather than having five percent of Enlightened teachers, you had 25 per cent?” The answer has always been the same: it would transform their school for the better.”

Teacherly authority is the framework that makes possible the systematic achievement of this transformation.  Rebuilding teacherly authority on a basis suited to the twenty-first century is the means to achieve this.

It IS all about relationships.

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 concept and practice of teacherly authority.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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