Safety first!
There is a big difference between something offered conditionally or unconditionally. When it is something important – like feeling safe – a child needs this to be unconditional. No matter how badly they behave they must know, without a shadow of doubt, that the offer of safety from the adults around them will not be withdrawn.
Most people have been brought up with conditionality, often to the extent that we don’t easily see the difference – or importance – of being unconditional in key areas.
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Just observe!
Enlightened teachers – whose students willingly do their best work and self-regulate to avoid disruptions - are a small minority of all teachers. Now we have a framework that explains what they are doing to have such an effect on their students allows us several ways forward to spread these practices more widely.
An obvious one is to have other teachers observe an enlightened teacher in the classroom through the lens of a rubric that frames what the teacher is doing.
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Imagine that!
Once we are operating in the paradigm that is emerging to replace Behaviourism (still no name but based on the teacherly authority principal!) the idea of punishing someone – anyone, but especially a child – becomes, literally, unthinkable. Shaping someone’s behaviour by either reward or punishment is no longer a thing.
Under the new paradigm behaviour becomes self-regulating with the student actively avoiding disruptions to maintain shared attention with their teacher.
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Don’t 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.
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