CAN YOU REALLY EVOLVE AS A TEACHER?

Greetings from the annual convention of the American Accounting Association.   One of the plenary speakers was Jimmy Wales who founded Wikipedia.  He is truly one of the most impressive people I have ever seen.  Very inspiring person.   Hope you get to hear him one day.

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The following blog entry is, to some extent, an extension of my previous essay on this blog.

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Below is a note that I wrote yesterday morning to my intermediate accounting students.   Even before the semester begins, I am trying to stack the odds of success in my favor.   Based on my 43 years as a classroom teacher, I have found that most C students make C’s, most B students make B’s, and most A students make A’s.   Okay, there is always some movement in the ranks but I often get frustrated with the rigidity of this alignment.   Students bring to class a self-image that seems to create an upper barrier that limits how good they can be.   In other words, they live up (or down) to their own expectations.

I want to break that cycle by convincing them that they can be better if they simply take different actions from the very beginning of the semester.   It doesn’t do me (or them) nearly as much good to make these suggestions at midterm.   By that time, they are already into their routines.   I very much want to get the C students and the B students to stop thinking like C students and B students and start reinventing themselves as A students.   I think that is a worthy goal for a college professor (or any other teacher). 

Now, if you are a teacher, you might very well be sitting at your computer screen nodding your head in agreement.   When we talk about students, it is easy to see how they come up short and how they should do better.   “They” (the students) should do better is a constant refrain of teachers.

But let’s turn the tables.   I have always found that most average teachers are average about every semester and most good teachers are good every semester and most great teachers are great most semesters.   Okay, there is always some moving around but not as much as I would expect.   The alignment pretty much holds semester after semester.

Like students, I think most teachers have self-limiting perceptions of their abilities.   “No matter what I do, I’m always going to be an average teacher.”  Or  “I’m pretty good but I’ll never be great.”  

Is that true?  If it is not true for students, then it should not be true for teachers.   I believe firmly that an average or a good teacher should be able to become great.   Every speech I’ve ever given is based on that belief.

Yes, I wrote the following email to my students to push them to consider how to become better students.   I wanted them to cast off any upper limits they perceive and make an A even if they have never done so before.

But, I am sending the same email to every teacher (including myself) with exactly the same message:   YOU CAN BE BETTER.   YOU CAN GROW.   YOU CAN BECOME A GREAT TEACHER.   EVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE.

However, it does not happen by accident.   That is the point of my email below to my students and my message to you.   As I say here, learn to think differently.   Learn to think like a freak.

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To:   My Intermediate Accounting Students for the Fall

The semester begins in a few weeks.   I had suggested (with the offer of a bribe) that you read the book Think like a Freak over the summer.   Several of you have written to talk about what you have already uncovered in your reading. 

At the beginning of Think/Freak, the authors talk about the world hot dog eating contest.   Okay, that is a bizarre way to begin a book but they make a good point.   For many years, everyone believed that there was a specific upper limit to the number of hot dogs a person could physically consume in a particular period of time.   That was a barrier that just could not be broken.   Consequently, contestants could never get beyond that number because they did not believe they could get beyond that number.   

A new competitor came along who ignored the so-called limit.   He did something no one else had done.  He took the process apart step by step and analyzed each action carefully.   He questioned how each step was to be performed and whether it could be carried out in a different, more efficient way.   Then, he experimented endlessly with every alternative to see if he could uncover some better way to proceed.   As a result, he blew well past the world’s record.   And, his methods became the new norm.  

Ignore the perceived limits.

Analyze each step in the process.
Question how each step is done and look for better alternatives.
Experiment endlessly
Exceed the upper barrier.

My guess is that every one of you approaches my class with an upper limit buried deep in your mind:

“I will be lucky to make a C.”

“I’ll work hard and pray that I can make a B.”
“I’d love an A but I will be thrilled if I can make a B+.”
“I hear Professor Hoyle is an ogre—I just hope I pass.”

If you have an upper limit in mind, then the chances of your exceeding that limit are probably zero and the semester hasn’t even started.   That upper limit just hangs over you and pushes you down.   “Here is the grade I expect to make by doing X so I will do X and hope I can make that grade.”   That is self-limiting.

There is no upper limit.   You are very bright folks.    You are all smart enough to make an A+.    If you wash the concept of an upper limit out of your head, you and every other student can be excellent in this class.   And, when that happens, you will be thrilled.   You will start to think differently about your own abilities.

What’s the key?   Just like in the hot dog eating contest, look at everything you do in this course:   reading the textbook, setting times to study, working problems that I give out to you, working alone versus working with people, taking notes, reviewing your notes, studying for tests, listening in class—just absolutely everything.   Is there a better way that you can do any of these?   Can you experiment to see what works better and what works worse?   In other words, can you push through that self-imposed limitation and become an A+ student.    Can you evolve?   I believe you can but I think it might require some different thinking on your part:     

Ignore the perceived limits.

Analyze each step in the process.
Question how each step is done and look for alternatives.
Experiment endlessly
Exceed the upper barrier.

Think like a freak.

Time to Think Differently

One of the great benefits of teaching is that the summer is available.   We can do research and writing.  Or, we can work to improve our teaching.   “How can my next class be better than my last class?” is a great question to ponder during the summer break.   You have had a couple of months of break – how often have you addressed that question?  

I am a strong proponent that everyone needs to learn to think differently about the challenges they face.   If you think like everyone else, you will wind up being average by definition.   In my book Don’t Just Dream about Success:   Stack the Odds in Your Favor, I devote an entire chapter to the challenge of learning to “Think Differently.”   Here is just one of the suggestions that I put forward in that book:

“’How could this have been improved?’ is a great question to consider throughout your daily wanderings.   It stimulates critical thinking.   Let your mind expand to consider the widest possible range of answers.   Except for the Ten Commandments, nothing in life is really carved in stone.   Almost any service, product, or arrangement can be helped by a bit of innovative questioning.   I have no proof, but I suspect that the employees at Apple, Google, and Amazon spend more time seeking out better questions and fewer hours defending the status quo.”

“Defending the status quo” – in most operations, there is too little time spent thinking differently and way too much time spent defending the status quo.   I think that is true for teaching just as it is for many other things in life.

So, recently, I was thrilled to read the book Think like a Freak by Levitt and Dubner who had previously written Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics.    I won’t try to boil down Think like a Freak into a few sentences but the authors argue (as I do in my book) that we are too quick to accept the status quo without question.   They stress asking better and better questions and then analyzing all available data to figure out the actual results and what caused them.   They write about taking traditional thinking apart—piece by piece—so that innovative alternatives can be tested.   All of that seems to be inherently obvious but it is very easy to accept “traditional wisdom” and be accepting of the status quo even when the end results are not as hoped.   Is your teaching being saddled by the traditional wisdom and the status quo?   In their book, these authors had two words that I liked especially:   “experiment endlessly.”  

When is the last time, you seriously experimented with your class organization and structure?

I liked Think Like a Freak so much that I wanted to share its wisdom with my students.   I believed they could learn something of value that might carry over into the fall semester and make them better students.   Here was the question I needed to address:    How could I encourage my students to read this book during summer break?   The writing style is lively and fun and the topics (how can a person break the world record for eating hot dogs?) are amusing and insightful.  But students are not inclined to read a serious book during their vacation time.

I wrote my junior students for the fall and told them about the book and why I had liked it.    I figured that would get their attention.   Then, I told them that I would give each person who read the book over the summer 2 ½ extra points on our first test in the fall (out of three tests and a final exam) if they had read the book by that time.   Therefore, they weren’t reading the book for fun.   They were reading the book to earn extra credit on the first test in a difficult course.   That provides motivation.   That is enough points to be helpful to their grade but not enough points to guarantee too much of an improvement.  

Since that time, I have heard from approximately 1/4 of the students who talked about reading the book and how much they were enjoying thinking about thinking.   Here’s a note I got yesterday:

I have been reading the Think Like a Freak book that you had recommended, and this has surely helped me view general problems (even personal ones) differently. I really believe that by the end of the book, I will be able to think through problems more efficiently, and hopefully use it toward the accounting problems this fall. 

Is that kind of insight worth 2 ½ points on one test?  I certainly think so.   Reading is always good for people.   I think this particular reading can be especially helpful to the students which might make them more successful (and my life somewhat easier) in the fall.  I am more than happy to give up those 2 ½ points for that potential benefit.

What are the lessons that I think can be learned from this particular experiment?

--Never stop trying to get your students to do things that improve their chances of reaching your goals for them.   Do not feel confined to the few months that make up a semester.   Many of these students are working hard for me, well before the semester even begins.

--College students need a little push.   They are human beings.   They have a lot of things that need to get done in their lives.   If you ask them to do something without a reward, it probably will never get done.   We all know that.   They are too busy or get distracted and, pretty soon, the time has passed and the opportunity is lost.   Give them a push. 

--Even a small amount of motivation can get good results.    For 2 ½ points on one test, a number of them will read a book that might change their entire way of thinking.   You do not have to give away the bank to get students to do work.   But, it is extremely helpful to have a specific reward system in order to provide a justification for doing the work requested.   It does not have to be much but it does need to be some.

Okay, that is one way I thought differently about the upcoming semester.   What about you?   What kind of innovations have you considered?   What kind of experiments might help your students to work harder and learn more?   That is one of the benefits of summer—you have time to come up with a great answer.