A third will work hard and learn lots no matter what. They’re your clydesdale learners.
A third will naturally resist … not no matter what … but they’ll resist and resist and resist before they commit to learning.
And a third will sit on the fence … like weather vanes … waiting for a fair or foul breeze to point them in any direction.
If you’re looking for the best group of learners to target … to really make a difference … focus on the weather vanes.
If you have two-thirds of the group excited and buying in, the resistors will be that much easier to convert when they know they’re in the minority.
I’ve heard some professional coaches are applying this theory to their teams – although in their medium the approach might be a bit different. The players who are model professionals, who are team-oriented, who are “buying in” (the “clydesdales”) are those who the coach appeals to or targets. Just as importantly, the needs/wants of the “troublemakers” are ignored, and they are definitely not appeased. The “weather vane” players, should logically follow the clydesdales, as it would be the path of least resistance. Apparently this was Tom Coughlin’s approach two years ago when the Giants surprised everybody, made the playoffs, and eventually won the Superbowl (apparently it didn’t work quite as well this year, as evidenced by the Plaxico Burress debacle).
In the classroom, as long as you have enough clydesdales and/or the clydesdales you do have are dominant personalities, the weather vane theory can definitely apply (a little more challenging at QE, where we have a shortage of clydesdales and a surplus of horses headed for the glue factory). I think some of the ideas Gladwell explores in Tipping Point apply here, too. At a certain point, an epidemic of learning can occur if you get those fence-sitters “infected” (and again, at QE, too many students have been innoculated, either by their upbringing or by the traditional educational model). Once you have the fence-sitters, at least some of the resistors are sure to follow.
In my experience, the dominant-personality clydesdales are so vital – perhaps too vital – in determining whether or not my classroom is a consistently effective learning environment. Ultimately, my real challenge is developing and maintaining an effective learning environment in the absence dominant-personality clydesdales.