How to build legitimate teacherly authority - 1!

This is not as hard as you think

The expression of twenty-first century skills propounded by the World Economic Forum splits these skills into Foundational Literacies (that can be written in the curriculum) and then Competencies and Character Qualities that, together, I like to refer to as Life Skills.

At first glance, it looks daunting to try and develop these Life Skills in students, but it becomes easier when you realise that these skills are derived from four capacities, three of which emerge in humans before the age of about six and the fourth is a particular cognitive stance essential to adult maturity and discernment.

Two things: developing Life Skills is (1) largely a case of nurturing capacities that already exist in young people and (2) these capacities should already be developed to a greater extent in the adults around them.

When adults do have these capacities then these can become the basis for teacherly authority.  If adults don’t have them, then they will need to learn them if we want to be serious about teaching twenty-first century skills.

I have already touched on the importance of insight here, and the graphic shows how developing this capacity underpins a range of competencies and character qualities that make up Life Skills.

Any school that is using coaching for staff development has the core capability already inhouse.  The key is to recognise that coaching is useful to improve teacher practice AND it is building each teacher’s capacity to have insight and, by emulating the behaviour of effective coaches, learning to help their students develop insight - into their work, how to do their work, how to position themselves vis-à-vis the world around them and helping them to uncover unsuspected capacities and opportunities that will shape their future lives.

When students recognise that all this is being offered, then you have the basis for building legitimate teacherly authority and fully engaging students, whose attention can then be directed to the curriculum you want to teach.

Looked at this way, it requires effort, but is doable.

I will be offering a one-day program in Term 3 for those teachers interested in further learning about how to develop high levels of legitimate teacherly authority and join the small minority of teachers who have a lifelong impact on their students and whose students willingly do their best work.  Stay tuned.

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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