Institutional Authority Of The Teacher

Originated from the social formal institution, Teachers' institutional authority is a sort of specific power submitted and identified spontaneously by others, especially the students. It has important meaning in the perspective of grand, middle and microcosmic research. First, Teachers' institutional authority is the objective demand of public education system. Because teachers undertake great responsibility of cultivating and shaping eligible citizen for nation-state, the government of the country certainly will endow them with significant rights by making corresponding policies, which ensure that teachers' pedagogical activities will develop smoothly. And this particular right of teachers will change into teachers' institutional authority when identified abroad. Secondly, teachers' institutional authority constitute the primary type of relation between teachers and students, that is, educating others and being educated by others, influencing others and being influenced by others. On the other hand, it is also one important foundation for schools as an organization to function orderly and steadily. Finally, owing to the possibility that teachers' institutional authority can give them some social status, some useful resources and some chances to improve, it is also very important for teachers' development as an individual.However, due to the fact that education in our country often runs under the control of government, schools as an organization tend to be bureaucratic and the quality of teachers needs to be improved, teachers' institutional authority appears some defects in this situation, including the abstraction of authority subject, the instrumentalism of its relief, the unilateralism of its relationship and the obturation of its practice. Confronting all these current problems, I think we must consider a question: where will the teachers' institutional authority go? With the return of Humanism spirit and the rising of teachers' professional development, we can infer that every type of teachers' authority should cooperate and harmonize mutually. Therefore, teachers' institutional authority needs to be combined with other types of teachers' authority which refers to the traditional, professional and Charisma ones.Concretely, teachers' institutional authority provides relatively stable political and institutional foundation for other types of authority, which endows teachers with qualification and rights to be an eligible teacher. On the other hand,the other types of teachers' authority make some reparation for the institutional one as listed below: the traditional authority offers it abundant moral basis and social identification; the professional authority guarantees strong competence in profession; the Charisma authority helps it turn into a kind of endless power to enlighten the students. Under this circumstance, teachers' institutional authority not only implements the national goal in education based on the essentially educational principle, but it also achieve the individual development of teachers and students.