What’s new about the new authority?
Being present instead of powerful, prioritizing relationships instead of distance. This concept of a new authority is used more and more frequently in the classroom. What does it involve and how new in fact is this authority?
Ms. Nelson is a gentle teacher. Her class, though, is the boldest in the building. Little shreds of paper chewed up into spitballs fly across the room. When the teacher asks students to stop, they just laugh and ignore her. Finally, Ms. Nelson stops coming to the classroom and a stricter teacher takes over. She bangs her ruler on the desk, raises her voice and threatens scofflaws with punishment. The kids barely dare move because they’re so afraid of her.
This scene is from a book entitled Miss Nelson Is Missing! It stages a reflection of the typical classroom dilemma: The traditional type of authority, based on obedience and threats, is neither fun nor does it make sense. And yet, the teacher whose presence resembles a gentle spring breeze – mild and barely perceptible – all too soon comes away with nothing, meaning she has lost it all: the respect of her students and the ability to influence their behavior.
Reliable strategy to deal with violence
Today’s schools are in dire need of a concept of authority that works for teachers as well as students. The new authority provides certain options. Israeli psychologist Haim Omer developed this model in the 1980s to help parents deal with violent adolescents. Nowadays, schools draw on the principles of this concept more and more often to manage life at schools. Central to the concept is the conviction that true authority is created not through physical force and power, but through presence, transparency and the building of relationships. Instead of betting on confrontation, the new authority prioritizes nonviolent resistance by drawing on famous personalities like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
What’s new, is that Omer’s concept picks the most efficient factors from all kinds of different approaches, a bit like in the maxim: “Take the best of everything and run with it!”
The concept provides a code of conduct for teachers: how to be a strong presence while teaching, how to practice self-control and how to create support networks. In practice, this means that teachers react to confrontations in the classroom with attentive consideration and self-control. They de-escalate situations and make clear pronouncements. Their actions and their decisions receive support from the entire teaching staff and the students’ parents.
Old ideas, new combinations
Presence, self-control, networking: There’s nothing all that new about this new authority. Doris Brodmann concedes as much. She works as an educator who advises schools and institutions trying to implement this new authority. What’s new, however, is that Omer’s concept picks the most efficient factors from all kinds of different approaches, a bit like in the maxim: “Take the best of everything and run with it!”
As such, the new authority, not unlike other models of authority, promotes direct communication and rituals. These create structure and feelings of belonging. But the decision to renounce physical force and absolute obedience is a principle native to anti-authoritarian approaches to education. What to call the concept is thus of secondary importance. In Germany, for example, some people call it ‘relational authority.’
“For me it’s an attitude that is not restricted to institutions. To start shouting isn’t very helpful either when you get into a tiff with a neighbor in the laundry room.”
Brodmann has been working with the concept of the new authority for some 15 years: at first, in drug abuse prevention, then in special needs education, and currently in her capacity as lecturer at the ‘Systemic Institute for New Authority’ in Zurich. The concept is also useful in daily life. “For me it’s an attitude that is not restricted to institutions,” Brodmann says. “To start shouting isn’t very helpful either when you get into a tiff with a neighbor in the laundry room.”
At school, de-escalation and relationship building are essential to securing an effective learning environment. Both of these tactics begin with the teacher. “I can only be a presence in the classroom when I’m ‘at home with me,’’’ Brodmann explains. “This means when I can rely on my self-control, my abilities, and also the support of my team.”
The way to achieve this new and experiential authority in the context of teamwork or in the classroom can take years to develop by way of educational coaching processes. Many aspects of this new authority frequently exist already, according to Brodmann. “What’s still needed is to clarify commitments and viewpoints.” The questions that come up along the way include the following: To feel comfortable with the other teachers, does this also mean to get support from them? And how is this feeling compatible with the old axiom: “A good teacher can go it alone”?
Teachers support their colleagues
Brodmann gets positive feedback from teachers who implement Omer’s concept. They value knowing for certain that their colleagues support them; they also value knowing their own ability to counteract an escalation by means of self-control. In a real life situation, the new authority can look something like this: The teacher is faced with a student who refuses to sit at his assigned desk. The teacher explains calmly that she does not condone this kind of behavior and that she will address it at a later time. Then she resumes teaching.
“The temporal aspect is one of the stumbling stones preventing the implementation of the new authority in the classroom. But what’s the alternative? To do nothing?”
In this way, the teacher has managed to avoid escalation while she has gained time to consult with her team in order to work out a suitable response. Both, the teacher and her class, emerge from this situation with a greater sense of strength. The message was clearly communicated: Improper behavior was addressed and processed, which initiates development – something well-thought out and discussed with others in the team.
It takes time and energy
To implement the concept of the new authority in every single classroom requires an innovative school and highly motivated teachers. All of this consumes an enormous amount of energy and time, at least several years.
In the face of the acute shortage of qualified teaching staff, of teachers overburdened by workloads and the omnipresent pressure of performance standards and time constraints, such an implementation is a tall order indeed. Brodmann, too, perceives the dilemma: “The temporal aspect is one of the stumbling stones preventing the implementation of the new authority in the classroom. But what’s the alternative? To do nothing?”
What would nice Ms. Nelson, who stopped turning up to teach her impudent students, have said about that? She would have welcomed the concept of the new authority with a generous smile. Because the severe woman who took over her class was not a new teacher at all. It was Ms. Nelson herself but in disguise. This story was first published in 1977 and to this day remains one of the most popular picture books in England.
SO WHAT ACTUALLY IS AUTHORITY?
The concept of authority is derived from the Latin word auctoritas and designates a generally recognized form of respect that is linked to influence and power. In the educational context, priests and teachers used to be considered unimpeachable authorities. Such figures also signaled stability and correct moral orientation. As authority as such declined, their power and influence likewise began to crumble. At the end of the 1960s anti-authoritarian education was on the rise. Discussions around authority reflect the conflict between necessity and mistrust. For political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who already examined this notion in the 1950s, authority was a political virtue and not an educational phenomenon.
published; Journal “Building Schweiz” (05/2024) www.bildungschweiz.com