Becoming a profession!

Who we are and how we behave matters in a profession

I have often written about the professionalising of the teaching profession and the difference between a profession and a non-profession being that the professional is part of the offer, they are fully engaged. We know that a doctor’s bedside manner makes a difference to a patient’s recovery as well as a sound diagnosis and treatment.

Thus, as teachers become increasingly professional (as opposed to being state employees) who they are and how they relate to their students increasingly matters.  Many teachers recognise this with the slogan “it is all about relationships”.

Our latest research* confirms this.  Overwhelmingly, students want to feel psychological safety and when they do, this triggers the teacherly authority dynamic, and students willingly do their best work and self-regulate to avoid disruption.

For a student to feel psychological safety the teacher needs to have a specific relationship which can be called “unfeigned love”.

So, the relationship is Constructive Mutualist (“unfeigned love”) rather than Behaviourist (“conditional or unconditional love”).  Under Behaviourism the teacher modifies the behaviour of her students to get their attention, under Constructive Mutualism the teacher modifies her own behaviour to attract her students’ attention.

Behaviourism has the teacher solely responsible for classroom management and enforcement of rules. Constructive Mutualism has these responsibilities shared between the teacher and her students.

This shift really is a tipping point.

* Corrigan, J. and Merry, M. (2023A).  Constructive Mutualism: Teaching 21st Century Skills in 21st Century Classrooms (in peer review) Frontiers in Education.

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 providing psychological safety and unfeigned lover through operating from the Constructive Mutualist rather than the Behaviourist paradigm.  Earlier blogs can be found here.