In conclusion!

A summary of where we stand today

Education has reached a tipping point. The Behaviourist paradigm is no longer adequate to shape behaviour and attention in the ways that are needed for young people to acquire the skills to face up to an uncertain future.  After a fifty-year journey we have reached the very edge of this paradigm and are poised to break out into the Constructive Mutualist paradigm which is able to deliver high levels of quality student engagement and low levels of disruption.

A small minority of teachers operate in this paradigm already (and have done so for a long time) so we know that the outcomes we seek can be reliably achieved.  In addition, there is a substantial body of research supporting the importance of providing psychological safety to enhance engagement, learning and performance.

Our latest research (currently under peer review) establishes that psychological safety is the most important factor in school life for both students and teachers and that, despite most teachers believing they are providing it, they are not doing so to adequate levels.

We then propose (in a paper in preparation) that the key to the provision of psychological safety is the use of unfeigned love that goes beyond the conditional and unconditional forms of love that are within the Behaviourist paradigm.  The steps that operationalise unfeigned love can now be laid out and are both learnable and therefore teachable.

Making the shift to the Constructive Mutualist paradigm has the potential to resolve problems of low student engagement and unacceptable levels of classroom disruption.

A teaching profession which embraced this change would see a progressive increase in their status and earnings as the improvements in outcomes ripple through society.

 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 providing psychological safety and unfeigned lover through operating from the Constructive Mutualist rather than the Behaviourist paradigm.  Earlier blogs can be found here.