Creating "buy-in," soliciting student voice, and winning over the overall student population of the classroom is paramount in cultivating a rich learning environment in any classroom. One could say the art of "sales" is at the core of what makes the most effective teachers "effective." If any teacher is going to lead a student into the world of discovery, curiosity, wonder, adventure, and/or high levels of engaged mental activity, then the teacher MUST be able to sell the student(s) on what it is that the student is charged to perform. If one asks any teacher whether he or she has heard the questions, "Why do I have to learn this?" or "When am I really going to use this in life?" then the answer one would most likely get in return is a resounding "YES." All students need to believe in the importance of the content to be mastered. Teachers all over are relentlessly efforting students in an attempt to create a culture of learning which students trust the teacher well enough to automatically answer "how high?" when the teacher instructs them to "jump!" In fact, literature has been written and extensive research has been done by the likes of Alan November, Philip Schlechty and Rick Stiggins (just to name a few) in the area of student engagement and the importance of meeting students where they are.
However, now more than ever... the game has changed. With the advent of social media, students really are a powerful customer with a voice. If a student is bored, he or she just tweets their opinion of boredom. If a student is mistreated by a teacher with unfairness, he or she muses on facebook. We, as educators, need to know that today is the day our clientele really needs to have their insatiable hunger for meaningful learning quenched through environments and lessons which appeal to the students like never before. If not, then the educator's most important critics, (their customers) the students will let everyone know, via social media, that the product the educational system is selling is not worth buying.
I am not sure if New York Times Best-selling author, Daniel Pink will mention this educational phenomenon in his new and highly anticipated book, but the overall sense that times are changing with regard to "sales" and who is the "salesperson" and who is not can be inferred by watching the following trailor for the aforementioned book, To Sell is Human.
