Flipping education!

Teacherly authority is the main game, subjects are only the vehicle

“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” Sidney Hook, American philosopher (1902 -1989).

The concept of teacherly authority brings explanatory power to this quote.  The higher the level of teacherly authority the greater the impact on students.  The higher the level of teacherly authority the more learning is on offer.  Our error has been to believe that what students need to learn is mainly in the curriculum.

Teacherly authority is about cultural transmission, and today there is much that young people need to learn in terms of how to prepare for an uncertain future.  We are at the point where the subject being taught has become a vehicle for the deeper learning which needs to take place.  The learning which is at the heart of twenty-first century skills.

These skills are learnt by paying attention to someone who has these skills already to a high degree – a teacherly authority.

Any adult could be a teacherly authority but given where the world is now young people ought to be able to rely on the adults in schools, if nowhere else.  High teacherly authority means high student engagement and better learning outcomes in a traditional sense as well.

There is a real opportunity for the teaching profession to further increase the value of education to society, which will only do good things for teacher status and remuneration.

The question then is, how do we grow teacherly authority?  Which happens to be the subject of my next webinar at the end of the month.

I presented webinars on 3rd and 17th March where I made the linkage between student feedback, student engagement and teacherly authority and what we mean by teacherly authority in the modern world (you can replay the webinars here and here, respectively).  This final webinar of this series is as follows (at 12 pm AEDT):

• Teacherly Authority - how do we strengthen and build it? 31st March (register 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