Don’t break down!

Identifying where the conditions for teacherly authority relationships break down

There are four conditions for two people to enter into a relationship based on teacherly authority.  It is the ‘teacher’ who has control over the first three and if those are in place the last condition – the student enters a relationship of teacherly authority with the teacher - is almost guaranteed.  Doing so is a fundamental part of human nature – we are built to pay attention to someone who meets our learning needs.

It is the second condition: “[the teacher has] a capacity which they want to teach for the benefit of the student” where disengaged teachers fall down.  They may be hardworking (and many are) but their focus is on delivering the curriculum, for example, or on something else and not primarily on the benefit to the student.

Motivated teachers who have the second condition in place may fall down for some of their students on the third condition: “this greater capacity is recognised and valued by the student”. The subject the teacher is offering may not be of primary concern to the student who declines to pay full attention.

It is enlightened teachers who have all three of the first conditions in place and the students fall in line, entering a relationship of teacherly authority.

For this willing collaboration to take place between teacher and student there must be some capacity which the teacher values and wants to teach for the student’s benefit and which the student values and wants to learn.

A small minority of teachers have worked out how to do this by themselves, it is now time to make this more systematic.

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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