Let’s accelerate!

We really are poised to move ahead

Once deeply within the teacherly authority paradigm the idea of punishing someone becomes unthinkable, literally the thought of doing such a thing never arises.  The idea of blaming someone or judging them also doesn’t arise.  Of course, this does not mean there are no consequences for unacceptable behaviours, but these consequences don’t diminish the person receiving them and don’t generate strong emotions in the person implementing them.

Walking into the kitchen with muddy shoes means you get to mop the floor versus “How many time have I told you, as if my day wasn’t hard enough, etc., etc.”

Although it seems natural to want to apportion blame, etc., that is only a consequence of the paradigm most of us have been marinaded in, based on reward and punishment.  In a different paradigm – based on willing collaboration and alignment of values - our responses are also different.

As a society we are gradually shedding the old behaviourist paradigm, but the new one is not alive enough yet for a critical mass of people to actively embrace it.

I think we know enough now that teachers who already operate in the teacherly authority paradigm can readily learn to describe what they do using the four core capacities (see here, here, here and here for more detail).

When your very best teachers are describing how others can do the same, that will begin to accelerate the process.

Learn about Teacherly Authority 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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