The Power of Authority

And thus week four comes to an end!

Hello all!

It has certainly been a busy week! This week I attended 10 presentations (I wasn't lying when I said busy!). Ranging from a high school in Arizona's most wealthy zip code to a Title 1 elementary school in Phoenix, the week provided a wide range of presentations and certainly a lot to think about. In this post I am going to focus on one factor in particular that really surfaced this past week. For the time being, I will still be leaving specific school names out of these blog posts but I will nevertheless give us much detail as I can to make this as interesting as possible.

On Thursday I attended 6 presentations back to back at a High School in Arizona's wealthiest zip code. This particular zip code ranks number 8 in highest graduation rate and faces few of the problems most other schools face. In the past presentations I've attended of schools that are on the upper end of the socioeconomic scale, the administrators very apparently seem less grateful for the presentations. Thus, they are less invested in the presentation and don't make as much of an effort to ensure that the presentation goes well. However, this particular high school did not fall into the trap of ingratitude. Rather, perhaps more than in any other school, the administration was very invested in making sure the students behaved during the presentation.

During 4 of the 6 presentations an administrator/official made it a point to introduce both the presenter and I and firmly, though kindly, told students to put their phones away and put their backpacks on the floor.  Saying, "I wouldn't ask you to put your phones away and devote your attention to this unless I truly thought it was an important topic", the administrator perfectly set the tone. And the results were immediately apparent. In fact, only during the two presentations in which the administrator was not present did the students get rowdy, a huge feat considering we are asking of freshman in high school to pay attention and be respectful for a whole hour.

I think this says a lot to the power of the authority in schools. When the authority took the time to stand up and say that this is important to them and to recognize that they are asking a lot but are asking it for a good reason, the students responded positively. It's a huge factor in ensuring that students are receptive to the presentation. And more over, it allowed the presenter to focus solely on the presentation and the story, rather than worrying about keeping the students (and in some truly frustrating cases the teachers!) from being rowdy.

Stay tuned for more news!

Until next time,
Shir