A revolution!

As important and far-reaching as the Copernican one

The swing from Behaviourism to Teacherly Authority is a shift in paradigm as profound as the Copernican revolution in cosmology: the move from a geocentric – earth at the centre - to the heliocentric – sun at the centre - view of our solar system.

Behaviourism controls through putting our animal nature at the centre of things, obscuring many of the better aspects of our humanity.  Teacherly Authority empowers by putting our human nature at the centre, allowing these better aspects to flourish.

Just as the Copernican revolution took time to take hold and did so against fierce resistance from an entrenched status quo, the shift away from Behaviourism has taken a long time – it was seen to be inadequate in education in 1970 – yet the remnants of it are still very much with us – making assumptions, being judgemental, an unwillingness to forgive are all grounded in Behaviourism.

Heliocentric versus geocentric views

We are closing in on a tipping point where we cease to be moving away from Behaviourism and we start accelerating towards Teacherly Authority.

A small minority of teachers have always done this but until now they have not been able to articulate what they have been doing.  Boosting this minority to a critical mass in a school – say 15-25% of staff with effective 100% student engagement - is now feasible and would provide a real catalyst for further growth.

So many things sort themselves out when we have 100% student engagement.

Learn how to make this shift at a 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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