Transcend!

There are obstacles to be overcome

Last week I talked about the need to resist institutionalising pressures by having a well-developed sense of autonomy.  In addition, the need to shelter young people from these pressures as they develop their own autonomy.  We know what gets in the way:

  • Fixed beliefs about students, what it means to be a teacher and how things are supposed to work in the school community and wider world

  • Being triggered by students, colleagues, parents or decisions handed down or other circumstances in the school environment

  • Moodiness, especially taking bad moods - which may be the aftermath of being triggered - into class

  • General overwhelm – too difficult - busyness, lack of time - to focus on what really matters

All these reflect activity in the interior of a person and can only be resolved by working on this same interior.  We (more-or-less) readily work on extending our knowledge and skills to act in the world but are much less systematic on working on our interior lives.

Yet, it is the quality of our interior lives that determines how autonomous we are, how readily we can withstand external pressures, and how effectively we can shelter and nurture young people.

Caterpillar to Butterfly.jpg

In a profession we cannot separate the person from the outcome, who they are matters as much as what they do.  Just as we develop what we do, we also need to work on who we are.

Here we come to an impasse.  Are we fixed and we strive to be true to our (fixed) selves or are we able to work towards becoming a better version of ourselves?

How we answer this will determine whether we are willing to put in the work to overcome these blockages.

This is a bit like the fixed versus growth mindset.

 

You can still download a pdf version of Why We Teach here.

 

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

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