"Students are lazy, but this year's batch is lazier than ever."
"Yea, if initiative were dynamite, they couldn't collect enough between them to blow one of their noses."
"They don't do their homework, they don't bring their books to class, they secretly send text messages from cell phones hidden under their desks, and they play video games on our classroom computer every time my back is turned."
"I think that the only secret to making these kids work is a cattle prod. The Supreme Court that outlawed paddling took away the last motivational tool that we had. The teacher is helpless."
Blah, yak, groan, grumble, etc."
Marketing Hype
The days when students eagerly await the wafting "words of wisdom" from the teacher's lips like flower petals at the feet of a bride, and the days of students scrambling to please the teacher with adoration (and with demonstrations of knowledge mastery through avid and fervent study for exams)…never were.
Sure there were a few bright and compliant students that rocketed past their complacent peers, skewing the grading curve (during the unenlightened days of "bell-shaped" grading); but for the most part, motivation was relegated to "forced compliance" techniques.
In the main, students never liked to study. Students never lacked diversions from their studies, either. However, today's diversions are more technical; i.e., video games, TV, portable music players; in addition to the ever popular sex, drugs and drinking.
But what happens when children with insatiable, unquenchable curiosity and an boundless thirst for self-mastery and achievement run headlong into the barriers, barricades and dead-end streets of our school systems? What happens to our students unique skills, their creativity, artistry, and self-expression? What transformation "morphs" our students dynamic attitudes, wide-ranging interests and eagerness to learn (that they had when they arrived on the doorsteps of our schools?)
Answer: We bore the excitement out of our students.
Imagine a marriage where the husband is forced to attend the ballet or the opera when he wanted to go to the football game with his friends, or wanted to watch the basketball game on TV.
Imagine a wife who is coerced to go on a fishing trip, or to go backpacking in the mountains when she really longs to go shopping for lingerie and new dresses.
Imagine the child who wants to learn about countless wonders who is forced to read the next section of the textbook and write out the "best-guess" answers to the questions at the end of the chapter. [Note: The answers are "best-guess" because these are the answers that the teacher (and the textbook authorities) believe to be "correct." "Correct" answers are accepted, while answers that rub the "wrong way" are punished.
Teachers' Marketing Errors
Teachers (as ineffective marketers) assume that their course-of-study is "in demand" and wonder why their "content product" leaves their students cold.
Here are teachers' major marketing errors:
- Teaching to "needs instead of wants." Marketers know that what people need seldom sells, and that products must be what people want. So, teachers must embed required course content in stories and information that students want to know about
- Pretending that "One Size Fits All." Marketers know that products must be individualized, personalized, tailor-made, even custom-made or customized to obtain high market demand. So, teachers must personalize and customize course materials to current student interests
- Expecting student motivation to be equal. Marketers know that every person (student) has different motivations for buying (or learning). So, teachers must use a huge bag of motivational tactics to engage students
- Failing to perform market research. Marketers survey their market, and structure their sales presentations appropriately. So, teachers must listen to students and act upon what students tell them
- Failing to test, test, test. Marketers test to see if their message resonates with their customers, clients and prospects. This is a test to determine how well the teacher is delivering information that is "spun" and customized to account for students interests, not a test for "how much content students are retaining. So, teachers must keep asking questions to uncover any blanks or gaps that students have in the course-of-study learning and thinking that the students have accomplished
Control what you Can Control
Some areas of course content are outside a teacher's control. For example, a teacher cannot control…
- State Standards
- Grade-Level Curriculum
- The Prescribed Textbook
- The Students that are Assigned to Class
- The Philosophy of School Administrators
Some things that teachers can control include:
- Integrating math, health, mental health and technology into stories related to every content area objective
- Prizing students for their unique, personal, creative perspectives on the content area material
- Directing the interpersonal and peer group towards caring and a healthy inclusion of all students
- Focusing on higher-order thinking, Multiple Intelligences and the creative process instead of rote drill
Turning "Dull Content" into "Bling"
Teachers that understand that passion and excitement translate into learning that "sticks" market their course-of-study.
The teacher's personality dictates whether the course is "hyped" with fanfare, spotlights and an inflatable gorilla (like a used car salesperson); or on the quite side, like a camp counselor who is telling stories around the fire.
No matter how much introversion or extroversion that marketing methods take, consistent and skillful marketing will include the following:
- Teachers will adjust the content to what students are interested in. And, teachers will communicate in ways that pique students' interest. Teachers market the course-of-study by getting students' attention
- Teachers will show students how unique the content that they are learning is. (Marketers label this "a unique value proposition." This means that students come to believe that they can't get this knowledge, in this way, anywhere else. Students come to believe that they are privy to something special, and privileged to be part of this teacher's inner circle
- Teachers make motivational and compliance easy, one-step-at-a-time. This means that teacher train students to comply by asking them to choose between only one option at a time, then create small "yes" steps to the big "yes." Teachers lead students from one step to the next
- Teachers reduce risk for students. This is done by providing peer group supported reasons for learning (so that the peer group doesn't sabotage the learning), and by providing a guarantee for reward (without a threat of loss) for each assignment
- Teachers provide testimonials (from former students, from successful students) to demonstrate that the course-of-study is fun, exciting, important, doable, beneficial, interesting, worth doing
- Teachers include a "Call to Action" that motivates students to respond, now, with the desired action step.
Master Teaching
Master teachers have used marketing techniques to promote student learning for millennia. They have just used other terms (educational jargon) to describe the process that they were using. The words describing the motivational process include: Grabbing attention, stimulating a desire to learn, moving student to learn, boosting interest, etc.
Master teachers also "reframe" the learning process so that their descriptions coincide with what students are interested in. For example, assumptions can be examined as "myths," issues can be embedded in human interest (even salacious and scandalous) stories (true or not), and concepts can be applied to any personal or professional experience.
For example, a student's interest in auto mechanics or fashion design can be used to describe math concepts, health issues, science principles, politics, etc.
The connections between the course-of-study and each student's interests are limited only by the teacher's creativity and imagination…and it is just that creativity and imagination that teachers need to "set off" in students.
Master teachers also perfected marketing's "bonus offer." Here "extra credit" has allowed teachers to use talents and skills from students' various Multiple Intelligences to compensate for less than stellar abilities in the "Verbal-Linguistic" and "Mathematical-Logical" areas that lesser teachers fixate upon.
Master teachers also negotiate the means and methods that will be used during class to increase the knowledge and skills that the students acquire. Less masterful teachers fixate on a "one-method-teachers-all" strategy with "quiz and test with points off" de-motivators. These same "dim stars of the education stage" often link the "point-off" strategy to "motivating" students to complete their homework.
Unfortunately, what this process succeeds in doing is to teach students to dislike and mistrust their teacher.
The Magic of Marketing: Same as Masterful Teaching
A master teachers know that marketing a course-of-study is less about scattering a our message to the wild-open world of students as the psychologists, professors and theorists imagine them to be; but more about pinpointing a specific message to each specific student.
Think more like a (scum of the Earth) telemarketer on the phone with you during your dinnertime, one to one; instead of the radio that plays in the background.
What's the difference?
Answer: You hear one, but no one hears the other.
Which results do you want your course-of-study teaching to emulate?
And remember the slick marketer's most guarded secret, i.e., that "People buy from people that they like."
The foundation of your marketing your course-of-study to your students is to earn their trust, deserve their respect, and treat them kindly and well…to be seen as the kind of person that they would like to learn from.
