February 6, 2007

What Makes a Great Teacher

We all had them. Teachers who made the subject matter come alive. How did they do it? What did they have in common? What can knowing that inform our work as professional marketers?

That's what Dan Heath had been studying around the time that he and his brother Chip (a professor at Stanford University) wrote Made to Stick, a book about what makes some messages stick (and others, not).

My favorite teaching example in the book involves an Iowa elementary school teacher named Jane Elliott who - in the wake of Dr. King's assassination in 1968 decided that she needed to teach her third graders about discrimination.

She divided the students into two groups: brown-eyed kids and blue-eyed kids. She announced that brown-eyed kids were superior. Blue-eyed kids, then, had to sit in the back of the classroom. And they had to wear special collars. Brown-eyed kids were given extra time at recess.

Friendships were badly disrupted, as brown-eyed kids acted out their superiority.

But, the next day, Ms. Elliott reversed the rules. Now the blue-eyed kids were superior. Kids who the day before had described themselves as feeling sad, bad, stupid, and mean suddenly had a complete change of attitude.

More than attitudes changed over those two days. Performance changed.

The Heath brothers describe what happened: "One of the reading exercises was a phonics card pack that the kids were supposed to go through as quickly as possible. The first day, when the brown-eyed kids were on the bottom, it took them 5.5 minutes. On the second day, when they were on top, it took 2.5 minutes. 'Why couldn't you go this fast yesterday,' Elliott asked. One blue-eyed girl said, 'We had those collars on...'"

Those children learned an indelible lesson in discrimination and its harrowing effects. How brilliantly Jane Elliott made the lesson come alive...and stick.

The Heaths discuss the six key qualities of an idea that is made to stick: simplicity (distilling an idea to its basics), unexpectedness (capturing people's attention), concreteness helping people understand your idea and remember it much later), credibility (getting people to believe your idea), emotional (getting people to care about your idea), and stories (getting people to act on your idea).

Their book is fun to read. And while it obviously has great application in our business, I couldn't help thinking how vital its application is in teaching. Wouldn't it be wonderful if those stand-out inspiring/motivating teachers were the rule, not the exception?