First, do no harm!

This is the way we can create space for young people

Last week I posed the question “What is different in education during a prefigurative emergence?”

The answer I gave is that transmission from teacher to child is less important (but not unimportant) than creating the space in which young people can struggle with defining the contours of what the future might be like and what they need to become to co-create and thrive in that future.

The first part of this answer is obvious, we need to maintain continuity of our technologies, infrastructure and institutions, we still need engineers and electricians, academics and teacher, writers and artists.

It is the second part that reflects the need for a substantive change. Creating space means not imposing our learned responses or biases on young people but rather presenting our best selves – confident, collaborative, creative and with the equanimity to choose our response – an ethical response - to people and events.

OODA Loop - situational awareness

In my latest book Why We Teach*, I discuss this in detail in the chapter entitled “First, do no harm”.  In terms of the four ways of knowing (Propositional, Procedural, Perspectival, Participatory), this requires the development of Perspectival Knowing – situational awareness, in other terms – the capacity not only to refrain from responding automatically to people or events, but also to respond wisely.

As schools (and our society, generally) have focused on Propositional and Procedural Knowing then the development of this deeper form of knowing reflects a departure from the norm.

A minority of teachers have this capacity now.  What can we do to develop this capacity in all the teachers and other adults in a school?

Starting two weeks’ ago and continuing for the next two weeks I will be posing a question like this to think about over the coming summer break.

 *still available for download as a pdf 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