Questioning ‘Authority’

As teachers head back to school, they will, once again be asked to step into the role of being the ‘authority’ in the room.  But just because someone says you are in charge, doesn’t mean people will listen to you. Just because you are called a teacher doesn’t mean students will want to learn from you.  

There is a whole world of difference between being labelled an authority figure and embodying authority and being recognised and sanctioned as the one who is ‘in charge’.

What’s this all about?

In this lesson we are going to look at what authority actually means, it’s difference from authoritarianism and the implications of being the ‘author’ of ideas in a room.

We’ll consider three aspects of where Authority comes from and what it takes to be someone others will follow.

I will ask you to examine your own attitude towards Authority and be clear about your own strengths and challenges surrounding the concept of leading a classroom of teenagers.

Finally, I’ll share my experience of those who taught me what Authority means and I’ll ask you to reflect on where you learned similar lessons and to re-evaluate what you want to keep or let go of as you develop as a teacher.

Opening Questions

First let’s think about Authority: What does ‘Authority’ mean? Is authority useful? Do we need it? Is there good authority and bad authority? What is the relationship between Authority and being an ‘Author’? Are you an Authority?

Does it sit easily with you? Can you be Authoritative?

And the big what is Authority actually for?

Not to be Trusted

I’ve asked these opening questions many times in my training sessions. In one recent session, I was confronted by a teacher who said that authority was to never to be trusted, it was negative and should be avoided.

She revealed that she had been brought up in a country where the authority figures, e.g. the government, had been responsible for dreadful oppression and that her father had been subject to that oppression.
Her experience cast a particular shadow over her understanding of what it means to be an Authority. 

Later in the session, she confided that reluctance to taking up the role of being the authority had had a huge impact on her ability to take charge of her Science classroom. 

She was always fearful of ‘squashing’ her students and ‘letting them get away with things’.

She found it hard to create clear boundaries for students without feeling that she was somehow repressing their spirits.

Our Personal Experience

We all have a personal experience of authority – we are all subject to imposed boundaries, some of which we accept and others we outright reject.  Also, we all learned about being an authority from those who have had authority over us.  Later we’ll think about how useful those lessons were and if they still fit the way we want to show up in our classrooms.

An Ambivalent Relationship

Personally, I struggled for a long time to believe that my role in the classroom had anything to do with being “an authority figure”.  It was the absolute last thing I wanted to be.  If any of you knew me socially you might say that I was still a shy person, reluctant to take the lead.  

But that is not the same person who shows up to teach. I have developed a teaching persona that my pupils and I need in the classroom by re-evaluating what really works and by learning to put it into practice.

Like the science teacher, I equated being an authority and taking charge with being a bully.  What I subsequently learned was that by taking charge of others I was helping others take charge of themselves.

You are the Authority figure.

I was carrying beliefs about authority that had been formed before I could decide whether I agreed with them or not.  Like our pupils in the last lesson, I was transferring these ideas onto Authority figures and projecting all sorts of negative ideas onto them.

Let’s start with a basic truth.  Like it or not YOU are an authority figure, YOU have to be the initiator of ideas, YOU have to ‘take charge’. But you can only really take charge in your own way.

What is Authority For?

If we are the ones in charge then it’s useful to remember that Authority has a function.  It is used for something or to make something happen.
Responses to the question of what Authority is for are varied. Some think that civilisation needs authority to prevent anarchy: authority is to do with boundaries and the creation of order.  This can be applied to organisations, like schools, or groups; like classrooms.  Authority, in this instance is necessary; a way of making sure order is maintained so that learning can take place. 

Others mention authority figures for whom authority is an extension of their vanity. In these environments, authority is synonymous with order but also with control and its purpose is not about making anything happen but more about making sure that something is protected or maintained.

So, which are you or which one do you aspire to be?

“Good” and “Bad” Authority

It is worth thinking in a very straightforward way, about the traits of ‘good’ authority and traits of ‘bad’ authority.  Again, in live sessions when asked this question, participants come up with similar answers. The list under the ‘Good Authority’ figure reads:

“Empowers others, Honest, Knowledgeable, Inspiring, Authentic, Brave, Enabling, Has Moral Principles, Fallible, Wise, Calm, Enthusiastic, Empathetic…”

Under the ‘Bad Authority’ figure the list reads slightly differently:

“Power trip, Self-esteem, unaccountable, infallible, Punitive, Distant, Bureaucratic, shouts, picks on individuals, holds a grudge, seems to not want to be there, blames followers/students for their failings…”

Where does your Authority Come from? Above, below and within…

Just because someone says you’re in charge doesn’t mean others will follow you. Anthon Obholtzer in his book ‘The Unconscious at Work offers a useful model of where authority is derived from.  Obholtzer, is a psychologist and works with psychological influences in Organisations:

Obholtzer recognises three basic sources of your Authority:

• Authority from above
• Authority from below
• Authority from within

Authority from above

Obholtzer claims that Authority from Above stems from ones “role in a system”, where your authority is “exercised on its behalf”.  He refers to this as a “system of delegation…with terms of office…and responsibilities”. 

In other words, our authority is bestowed upon us by a system, in the case of teachers, by the school ‘system’ and those who are ‘in charge’ of that system.  You might say your authority comes from your head of department, your head of year, your SLT and Head Teacher, the local authority or academy chain you work for.  The parents even.

The Authority from above means you are sanctioned by the system and its representatives to take up authority as a teacher.

Recognising that we are vested with authority ‘from above’ can be useful and is often forgotten when we are adrift in the soup of classroom management.  But, remember that being sanctioned from above means that we are supported in our work by a whole network of rules, regulations and procedures set out to empower us.  Being clear about our role in the system helps others to invest us with the innate respect that this role implies.   It means that when anyone takes you on,  they take on the system that supports you. 

I am not a number…

There is a downside to this though. When you show up in front of your students, you carry with you all of the associations of someone who represents ‘the system’.  You are not just Mr Carr, you are Mr Carr the teacher, ‘a’ teacher, representing the school, a representative of all teachers.  

This can be very positive, you will get respect afforded to the system.  However, you will need to be aware that you will also have to pull out some of the arrows some people like to fire into anyone who has Authority over them. 

But I’m a free woman!

I have seen many teachers try to throw the mantle of the system from their shoulders, and when I first started teaching, I was one of them.  They see this robe of the system as an imposition on their identity.  They are also uncomfortable with the potential attacks they will be subject to because of the way others judge the system rather than them as an individual.  But in the same way a leader can no longer just be ‘one of the team’, a teacher can no longer pretend he’s just another student – although I have seen many teachers try.

Some teachers argue that the system does not represent their values and as such covertly undermine the system in their classrooms. This looks like not enforcing school rules about uniform or mobile phones or lateness or worse they enter into unspoken allegiances with students ‘against’ the system. 
They say things like, “I don’t make the rules” or “It’s not what I would do but…”

It’s important as ever not to judge this behaviour but to observe that it is a reality that must be thought about and managed.

Where do you stand? 

Robust systems like robust classrooms can handle nuance.  

Teacher-Child

Teachers who maintain a sense of fun in a classroom are often very successful.  There is vast research to suggest that the best learning environments are often ‘playful’. Play is an arena where young people feel free to express themselves and much is lost when teachers and other adults lose an enjoyment of playing.

This is not to be muddled though with teachers who create friendly relationships with pupils, where they pretend to be one of them. These teachers are unwilling to step into the role of authority figure or just unable to do it with confidence. 

Given that classrooms need authority figures to help make the learning happen, the question is what is it that undermines some teachers attempts to take charge of the classroom. 

Some of the answer lies in getting to know and understand that part of themselves that sees being an Authority as too threatening?

Authority from below

No matter how much a head teacher or a school authority or society says that you have authority, if the pupils think otherwise then your qualifications are worthless.

Authority from below is straight forward to understand but challenging to achieve.

It is the sanctioning by those one has governance over.  In the case of teachers, it’s the pupils. The pupils need to give you authority if you are to be successful.  You are always outnumbered in a classroom, and if the students in that room don’t sanction you as their ‘leader’, you are in for a very hard time in teaching.

Who? What? How?

So what sort of Authority figure would the pupil’s sanction and as such, follow? If we believe, as I do, that pupils not only want to learn but are actually wired to learn then what is it that gets in the way of them being helped and led by their teacher?

The answer lies in the realisation that a classroom is not so much a physical space as it is an interpersonal space.  Not just a room but a matrix of relationships.  And, to be clear, we form emotional relationships to the subjects we are learning in the same way as we do to the people we are learning from or with.

Humans have ambivalent attitudes to relationships. On the one hand we know we need them.  We are social creatures. Others can help us feel safe. On the other hand, someone who is unknown poses a threat like nothing else. 

In Summer School 4(“Being parent B”) we explored some of the defence mechanisms that come alive when we or our students feel unsafe and our role as teachers in ‘containing’ them. It is this ability to ‘contain’ that lies at the heart of being an authority that will be followed.

Conflict, challenge, falling out and falling back in are necessary ingredients for resilient relationships.  The ability to ‘get through’ challenges and recover from conflicts are key to deepening mutual trust and respect.

The question is whether you can continue to provide safety when you yourself are challenged? Can you hold on, be steady and clear when the class is metaphorically wriggling, straining and sometimes screaming to break free and are you willing and able to continue to show up with lessons that demonstrate your clear purpose to put their learning at the top of your agenda.

This is when you will be sanctioned as an Authority figure or not. Like the parent of the infant, the way you alleviate the anxiety that is brimming in your classroom will determine whether students will trust and follow you.  

And, as ever, it is not easy. Particularly at first.

Authority from within:

Obholtzer:

“…authority from within individuals largely depends on the nature on their relationship with the figures in their internal world, in particular past authority figures…For example, an individual might be appointed to a position of authority yet be unable to exercise authority on account of an undermining…by inner world figures”.

Putting yourself in the Picture

The overriding these of our summer school has been about teachers getting to know themselves and this lesson is no different.

Who are the ‘inner world figures’ that can show up to undermine your teaching and how can they ‘undermine’ you as an authority figure?  

To understand this fully enough for it to be useful, we need to stop thinking of psychoanalytic ideas in the abstract or as a set of interesting academic musings and step into thinking about ourselves, our own childhood experiences and our own psychological make up. 

It can be challenging to bring some of our vulnerable personal inner world into the cold professional realm of CPD.  But to get the best out of your experience as a teacher,  I would encourage you to take a step toward rather than away from putting yourself in the picture. 

Your Inner World Figures – governed by forces that you did not elect.

The real question then is this: who are the people from your past who have influenced your ideas of what it means for YOU to be an authority figure?
You may have never thought about this before or it might be familiar to you.

Whichever is true, think now about the way you were introduced to authority and boundaries, about how you were ‘disciplined’ or encouraged about who was calm and who was shouting, about what subtleties your experienced and what you learned.  Think also about our key theme of safety. How did you keep yourself safe? Are you familiar with your judgements that keep people at a distance, do have some ideas about how you project t keep you safe?

In my 9 lesson on line course, we try to keep our minds focused on what is really going on in our classrooms.  We try to get beyond our subjective point of view and see what is in front of us in an objective way.

So, what is really going on for YOU as an authority figure?

The central idea of a mind to teach is that we make those forces that govern us and our pupils “available for thought”.  By dragging some our limiting self-beliefs out onto the light, we get to judge whether we want to hang on to them or work to move beyond them.  

Forces we did not elect

We are influenced in our behaviours from a time when we could not decide what to believe or who to trust.

We were once the terrified baby, the helpless infant, the trusting child, the confused and struggling adolescent and now we are the fallible teacher. 

So, ask yourself, when you try to pull the strings in a classroom, who, from your past,  is still pulling your strings and are there some strings you would now like to cut?

Who shows up when you are being “a teacher”?

If we are really to get the best from ourselves and enjoy our work, we may need to think more about the behaviours we have learned and where they come from.

When we do this, we can begin to choose what might be do next. We can, for example, decide which lessons are still of use to us today and which we can now begin to discard.

Tell me about your Childhood

When we get to this lesson in my training sessions, teachers talk about their fathers and/or their mothers. They say things like “My God, that’s exactly what my father used to say!” 

I had a Primary School teacher in my workshop recently who, when I asked this question, smiled and shifted in her seat. “What is it?” She shook her head slowly “My mother…it’s my Mum…” she looked over her shoulder as though her Mum had joined us in the room and took a deep breath.

Another teacher, Secondary Drama, had the same moment of enlightenment.  “My Dad was a Navy Officer.  I’m just like him in the classroom! I even clip my language like he used to…” For her, this realisation led to a rethink of the qualities of her father that she wanted to retain and those she wanted to move away from.

Me…

My own retained models of authority – Mum and Dad – could not have been more different. 

They were similar in that they both had a very short fuse. If things weren’t going their way, out of nowhere a roar of anger and frustration would pour forth sweeping away all before it!  ( I talk more about this in Module 2 of the online training)

What else would I do? This is what I had learned. The great thing about realising this meant that I could evolve a different way of taking up authority in the room.    

It wasn’t all bad

Despite her short fuse, Mum was loving and fun.  She was not good with boundaries but was an avid reader.  She loved books and for a woman who left school at 13, she was testament to how reading could transform one’s experience and expectations. She was probably more friend than parent. 

Dad

Dad was silent, worked 12 hours a day as a truck driver. Like Mum, he left school at 13. He was a Sergeant Major in the Royal Marines for a few years and had a quick temper. He also had a bad habit of using shame and humiliation to exert control. I guess, this is what he experienced in his childhood. 

Going to School with my Bag Packed

So, when I showed up in the classroom as an Authority, I brought these two with me as ‘baggage’.

The result of my Mum’s influences in practice meant that I tried too hard to be a friend to the students more than a ‘teacher’.  I was  laisse-faire about rules and completing tasks. I was trying to avoid conflicts and saw potential pressure points as dangerous and pupils as volatile.  However, I did have a clear sense of the value of what I was offering – learning(reading) is important and life changing. 

I was rightly wary of my Dad’s tendency to volatile explosions and the use of shame and humiliation as a behaviour tool. But then I thought about how he wasn’t afraid to demand attention, to demand his space and how he was disciplined. Put to good use, in the service of helping students learn, a reimagined, kinder version of my Dad had its place.

Persona.

It was around now that I began to really understand the concept of ‘teacher persona’. I began to develop a version of Steve Carr that hadn’t existed before – the teacher version.  An amalgum of my own  values and beliefs about Education, my ideas about what a positive learning environment looked like and how I would go about constructing a version of myself, a ‘persona’ that could make that happen.

I also threw in aspects of favourite teachers, Mr Thomas for great combination of firmness and fun, Ms Saltmarsh for her endless sense of care, Ms Baguley for her wit, ability to get pupils onside and knowledge of each student in her classroom.  Mr Crossley for his no- nonsense Maths teaching. 

Take Charge of Yourself

Teachers who given authority from below are often those who take charge of themselves.  They do not show up to lessons with their dirty washing.

They aspire to bring experience from past lessons rather than grudges, they offer second, third and fourth chances but are not walked over. 

When that happens, defences are lowered, relationships become nurturing rather than threatening and curiosity is allowed to flourish – the desire to learn is met with the interpersonal environment in which to learn.  If the teacher is able to step out of the way and guide at that point, great things are possible.

And they often get it wrong until they get it right!

Over to you. What kind of inner world figure do you want to be?
Speak to anyone and ask them to name the best teacher they had and the ‘worst’. I have never had anyone say they can’t remember.  In fact, I’ve rarely met anyone who doesn’t know straight away. In a recent survey published by the TES, 64% of 3500 people said their teachers were among the most influential and inspirational figures in their lives, with only parents named as more influential.

Never doubt the influence and power you have over the lives of the children in front of you.

Consider too the internal figures the pupils already have and the ones they are developing. Currently, like it or not, you are one of those figures and as such you will sit around the table of their inner world influencing how they take charge of themselves and their future.