Teacher Thoughts on Dan Pink: To Sell Is Human Part 6

I thought I had all my notes wrapped up and then I saw a piece of paper with notes scribbled on them and realized that these are perhaps the most important. Maybe not, but they are worth sharing if I took time to handwrite the notes as opposed to marking the page corners in the book.

When I was writing up ideas earlier I glossed over the page I had marked. I could not remember why I marked the page, but reading my note I instantly thought, "How could I forget?"

Dan Pink talks about Sam Sommers and the idea of a "jolt" to mix things up and see things differently. They talk about different jolts from simple things like sitting somewhere else in your regular routine to major things like traveling to another country. 

The jolt I thought of when reading goes to education. As teachers, why don't we go out and visit local businesses? Why don't we connect more with the community? We are always asking students to do this, but we need to as well. This could help us see what our students really need for skills and talents in the real world. We can talk to the owners and leaders and find out what they want from their employees. We need to stay in contact with the real world as "jolt" to our classrooms. We need to be reminded that the world is changing and simply reading about it is not always enough. We need to see it, feel it, hear it, touch it, etc. We sometimes need a "jolt" of reality to make our classrooms more real world.

Another one I overlooked is the Right Question Institute. Perhaps we as teachers need to enhance our skills with questioning a bit - Right Question Institute - http://rightquestion.org/

Just like the "jolt" concept posted above if we educators learn how to question better, then we can expect the same in our classrooms and teach students how to do this(much like learning how to listen in post #5). Just think where our classrooms could go if we could get students to listen and to question better. Holy cow! It would be amazing!!!

Reading this passage about 1% is another reminder for me to gain some clarity in my own life. I often times have so many things I am juggling around that if I were to focus on the 1% of the ideas in my brain I would have great focus in my life.

Last idea is the idea presented by Salit. He says to replace "Yes, but...." with "Yes, and....". This subtle change completely transforms the energy of the conversation and the possibilities in which a group can progress.

This is a small and powerful shift that can result in great things. And with that I end with my notes. I hope you have enjoyed.