Fads

I'm so fascinated by the idea of a high school fad. There are so many fads in any given year - one year it might be neon colored t-shirts and Ray Bans. The next year its Converse shoes and LiveStrong bracelets. What is so interesting about fads is the rate at which they are spread, the willingness of so many people to participate in that fad, and the amount of dissenters who scoff at each new fad.

What if we as teachers treated topics in school as though they are fads? I love this unit because it really makes us dig deep to find out how marketers are reaching high schoolers and trying to find a way to get every high schooler to buy into the latest "it" thing. In my classroom, if I treated learning about the water cycle as though it were the coolest thing to hit pre-school, then my four year olds would inevitably be excited. On any given day, a history teacher is really just trying to get his or her students to believe that the Declaration of Independence is the newest "it" thing.

What's interesting about fads, though, is it usually takes a trendsetter to make a fad spread. So the interest of one can quickly become the interest of many. So I really think that interest should start with the teacher. The teacher's excitement, in my opinion, is the best way to capture the interest of the students.