Built for adaptability!

We can have adaptability and strong foundational literacies

Humans are built for adaptability – this is the reason babies are born so little-formed (compared to a baby horse, say), so that they can adapt to the environment they are born into.

In times of change, our young people need to be at their most adaptable, developed with all their innate capacities so they can adapt to an emerging culture that they themselves will largely shape.

The best way for this to happen is for cultural transmission from adults to the young be strictly based on legitimate teacherly authority.  In other words, the ‘student’ values the capacity that the ‘teacher’ has and which she is offering to teach in the student’s best interest, and, in consequence the student agrees to pay attention to the teacher.

Using illegitimate or pseudo teacherly authority means that the young person’s attention is being directed towards areas of lesser importance – important to the teacher, maybe, but not to the student.  If this is systematic and long-term then we are developing young people suited to a dying past but not to the emerging future.  Eventually, this must stop, and now seems like as good a time as any to do just that.

Born to adapt

We know enough now that we can rebuild teacherly authority based on the capacities that students really do need – the development of insight, implementing projects, caring for others, active open-mindedness.

Once legitimate teacherly authority is in place then the teacher can direct the students’ attention to the subject she wants to teach.

The system’s needs are met, and the student’s needs are met.

A small percentage of teachers do this now and have a lifelong impact on their students as well as having students willingly doing their best work.  These teachers are not seen as the vanguard of a new professionalism, yet this is what they are.

We should take more notice.

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.

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