“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” Sidney Hook, American philosopher (1902 -1989).

The concept of teacherly authority brings explanatory power to this quote. The higher the level of teacherly authority the greater the impact on students. The higher the level of teacherly authority the more learning is on offer. Our error has been to believe that what students need to learn is mainly in the curriculum.

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One of the characteristics often observed in Enlightened Teachers is that they care for their students in terms of students feeling listened to and valued. For a long time, I assumed that this was the basis for students’ willingness to pay attention to such teachers.

Looking through the lens of ‘teacherly authority’, I can now see that, although the above is important, I had things the wrong way round.

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I presented a webinar last Thursday where I made the linkage between student feedback, student engagement and ‘teacherly authority’ (you can replay the webinar here). The key connection is made through the image below which shows the average student feedback for three different teachers, in the same school, across a range of their classes. The higher the response, the more engaged are the students.

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In any age the most effective teacherly authority is held by those people who are wise. They embody the knowledge (what is) and practice (what ought to be) of their culture which affords them the ability to effortlessly do the right thing.

The cognitive scientist, John Vervaeke states that the average person has intelligence (a general problem-solving capability), which is largely fixed by genetics and early nurturing, and a body of learned knowledge and skills.

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