Dropping Behaviourism!

We are amid an historical shift in how we regulate relationships

The feedback from last week’s participants in the (Re)Building Teacherly Authority program has been excellent and sharing the materials has opened my eyes even further to the epochal nature of the change that is occurring.

Finally, we can dispense with behaviourist approaches to relationships using reward and punishment to shape behaviour.  These approaches produce the red brain during childhood which most adults spend the rest of the lives trying to overcome, they aggravate and then sustain the disengagement of around 60% of adults in all walks of life and prevent the 100% engagement of students that we badly need so that our education systems can meet the needs of young people and society more broadly.

Behaviorist approaches have underpinned education systems ever since state compulsory education was first introduced in the early 19th century and been the most ubiquitous way of regulating human relations for centuries before that.

Just in our own times, these approaches have wrought enormous damage to the human condition.

Teacherly authority provides an alternative way of regulating human relations, which, in contrast to behaviourism which damages the human spirit, encourages us to flourish and fans the human spirit.

Teacherly authority will allow young people to grow up free of a red brain, thus able to develop fully their capacities to be able to face up to an uncertain future.

Once developed in our schools this more humane way of regulating human relations – by aligning values, rather than imposing rules – will spread into our economic, social and political arrangements, transforming them in turn.

At least, that is the potential of this change. And it is not just a dream.

There are two new dates for the one-day program (Re)Building Teacherly Authority on 27th October (Melbourne) and 10th November (Sydney).  For more information and to register for either event, go here.

To get a fuller overview of Teacherly Authority, go 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 concept and practice of teacherly authority.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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