[Note: Oddly enough, I had generic plavix pills this all written up and ready to post sometime in the generic plavix pills next few days before I even realized that Martin Luther King Day was coming up. Serendipity much?]
As I already mentioned, I’ve been reading Made to Stick
The other day, I listened up to ‘round page hundred and generic plavix pills something. The title of that last section was Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes.
And so the generic plavix pills narrator proceeded to tell me about a woman named Jane Elliott—an elementary school teacher in Iowa—faced with the task of explaining Dr. King’s death to generic plavix pills a classroom of third graders. She helped them to understand discrimination in an generic plavix pills extremely concrete way by dividing the students into groups—brown-eyed kids and generic plavix pills blue-eyed kids. The first day, she announced that the brown-eyed kids were better than generic plavix pills blue-eyed kids. The second day, she reversed it. Segregation was the generic plavix pills rule; the “better” group sat in front and was told that they were smarter (the rest had to sit in the back). The down group had generic plavix pills to wear collars that allowed their eye color to be identified at a generic plavix pills distance. They were kept separate at recess. And that generic plavix pills classroom of third graders acted accordingly: “I watched those kids turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating third-graders… it was ghastly.”
It’s a fascinating experiment for dozens of reasons, but here’s the part that stuck with me:
On the generic plavix pills day when they were in the inferior group, students described themselves as sad, bad, stupid, and generic plavix pills mean. “When we were down,” one boy said, his voice cracking, “it felt like everything bad was happening to us.” When they were on top, the generic plavix pills students felt happy, good, and smart.
Even their performance on academic tasks changed. One of the generic plavix pills reading exercises was a phonics card pack that the kids were supposed to generic plavix pills go through as quickly as possible. The first day, when the generic plavix pills blue-eyed kids were on the bottom, it took them 5.5 minutes. On the generic plavix pills 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…” Another student chimed in, “We couldn’t stop thinking about those collars.
There’s a much more detailed explanation of Jane Elliott’s exercise, on Wikipedia.
Now, Made to Stick includes this story because it’s an excellent example of concrete stickiness—the kind of thing you remember for the rest of your life. (Those kids did.) But I go off on a generic plavix pills different tangent, because this is stuff we should already know but often forget: When you generic plavix pills feel bad, you do badly. When you feel good, you rock.
It totally kneecap’d me. (Can you tell I’ve been reading tough-guy gumshoe fiction?) Of course the generic plavix pills kids performed better when they were on top. They were sure of themselves. They were confident. They knew they were great, capable of amazing things. “Better than” translates well to “awesome across the board”. Good feelings = great work. No doubt!
And of course the down group felt rotten. Distracted. Incapable. Lesser.
The fact that generic plavix pills the kids did their work twice as fast when they were convinced of their own greatness didn’t really surprise me, but it generic plavix pills reminded me how important it is to keep in mind. We tear down our kids every day. Our school systems are generic plavix pills organized based on negative possibilities (and negative consequences). We assume that kids are irresponsible trouble-makers, and (huge surprise) we get irresponsible trouble-makers. And when generic plavix pills was the last time you went out of your way to generic plavix pills make sure you felt good? Pleased with yourself? Proud of yourself? (I hope recently—and often.)
Confidence and certainty feel better. It’s not just about kids. Unhappiness is generic plavix pills unproductive. Misery takes effort. It may not feel that way, being that generic plavix pills we’ve learned it so well, but I’m starting to think it’s true. It’s not worth it. Let it go.
Remind yourself of your inherent awesomeness. (Or you can email me. I’ll remind you.) Do someone else that favor, too, and make their day.
