Time to adopt!

We have everything we need to get the ball rolling

A system based on Behaviourist values (however weakened they have become) will not reform itself.  The key to transforming our education systems is the realisation – individual by individual – that there is a better way of engaging students which ensures that they all willingly do their best work whilst avoiding disruptions.  Not only does more learning take place but there is a greater, and shared, sense of wellbeing.

Once the teachers who are currently operating from a different paradigm can articulate what they are doing differently, and colleagues who go into their classes know what they are looking for then the ‘early adopters’ can begin their journey of self-transformation.

Once this – growing group – is seen to be less stressed and enjoying greater success with their students then the next group, the ‘early majority’ can begin their own self-transformation.

It is this group that is critical to overall success as with it (even partially) we begin to have a critical mass and without it, we just have a slightly larger group than those who have always done it this way without  having much impact on their colleagues.

Moving the ‘early majority’ means crossing ‘The Chasm’ and will likely need having all leaders on board and modelling the new behaviours as well as having some supportive processes in place (e.g. observation proformas).  As we have seen, cognitive coaching is an ideal way for a leader both to model and to further develop the core capacities that underpin the adoption of the teacherly authority-based paradigm.

This is all doable, it will take time (but what substantive change doesn’t?) but the benefits will accrue incrementally in terms of increasing student engagement and learning and both student and teacher wellbeing.

We just have to get the ball rolling.

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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