POWER vs. CONTROL
During my 25 years of involvement with education I have seen classrooms where students respond to a teacher’s authority without a challenge. I have also seen teachers who manage to motivate their students to really work hard in a particular subject, even if they are not working in others. To understand why students respond positively to the authority of some teachers and challenge others we need to explore the difference between Power and Control.
When you force someone to do something under threat, and they do what is asked of them out of fear of punishment, that is control; not real power. The analogy would be the difference between a military dictator and a genuine leader. Both of them would get people to do things, but the results would be very different. This is because people obey the dictates of a dictator because he is backed up by the barrel of gun. They act out of fear and compulsion. A classroom or an organization where the predominant feeling is fear, is in the long term doomed to mediocrity because people will only do the minimum that they have to do to avoid punishment
On the other hand people obey a genuine leader out of loyalty, trust and respect. The hallmark of a true leader is that his role is to serve his people. Therefore, people work willingly for a leader because they sense that he is ‘there’ for them.
When people work willingly, they go the extra mile. Therefore to encourage excellence, which is to bring out the best in others, we must engage the person’s will. The issue, therefore, is how does a teacher, like a leader, get real power, which is when students submit to the teacher’s authority willingly and work for this person because they want to work for him.
Tags: Care and Growth in Education, powerful teachers, Schuitema, Shahpur Jamall
I read your article and its right about teacher s authority and behaviour. I think its better to be a good leader than the dictator and we have to motivate children so they enjoy coming to school with positive attitude and then the learning process will be easier for them.