Teaching Tip #132

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #132

Another great podcast I came across was from Dale Partridge.  Again, he is from the world of business, but his ideas on quality apply just as well to teaching.

One of my favorite things that Partridge focuses on is quality.

And we all want quality - whether it’s in our products (think Craftsman tools, Tiffany jewelry, or apple computers) or customer service (think Menards, Chick Fil A, Carmax, or Hardware Hank).

Partridge looks at the four aspects of quality -

3.  Visual.

Partridge is blunt with this one - ugly doesn’t sell.  Ugly isn’t remarkable.  This, I think, is one of apple’s strengths.  Thanks to the brilliance of Jonathan Ive, apple’s products are the best beautifully designed on the market.  There is no comparing my slim and amazingly designed MacBook Air with our old clunky, ugly, and now defunct Toshiba laptop.

This is one I love about Bath and Body Works.  Not only does it smell amazingly, but everything is organized and the lighting is great.  Now, contrast that with another store that just crams their shelves full of their products with little rhyme or reason.

The millennial generation (and really any generation) like that which looks good.  

So how does this apply to teachers?

Our appearance.  I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but students still do.  What we wear and how well we dress communicates a key message to our students.