Seth Godin, in his June 12, 2022 blog post “Push vs. Pull,” closes with this assertion—a framework applicable to any industry, organization, and person: “When we seek to make change, our instinct is to start pushing. But shifting to pull can create efficiencies that can’t be matched by mass promotion.” What does this mean for education and its many nooks and crannies? It’s sound advice for a school leader who’s identified a change that would improve student learning, or a teacher who’s identified the next skill to be learned by a class or student, or a parent who’s identified a behavior from which their kid would benefit if they learned to adopt it. “When we seek to make change,” Godin says, “our instinct is to start pushing.” But what can the school leader, teacher, and parent do to pull the learner in front of them toward that learning, that outcome? Examples:
- A soccer coach recognizes that her defensive back would improve her individual and, therefore, their team’s performance if she could “see the field” better. On the sidelines, she could, with words, repeatedly explain or, worse, command what seeing the field entails. She could stop practice, stand next to the player in front of all of her teammates and explain with words and pointing at what seeing the field entails. She could share with that player videos researched online, ask her player to watch them, and then, before the next practice, ask the player to explain in her own words what she thinks seeing the field entails and then practice with her coach’s well-timed feedback. Centering the player, her own thinking and her own voice pulls her in.
- A lower-school teacher recognizes that her student isn’t self-motivated to read. And having listened to this student talking during class, lunch, recess, and car-line, the teacher stocks her classroom library—to be explored during free-reading and/or choice time– with books that align with the student’s interests, thus pulling him in.
- A teacher has uncharacteristically and recently fallen behind in grading student assessments—behind enough to have merited a conversation with their department chair, whose intervention has little to no positive effect in getting the assessments graded with feedback back in students’ hands. Behind enough now to merit a conversation with the chair and division head. How might this conversation be had? Pushing might lead with non-negotiables, deadlines, and ultimatums. Pulling might lead with a question like, “What going on?,” and some reassurance like, “This isn’t like you.”
- A school leader might deem it essential for a school to reassess its learning outcomes and, rather than rewrite those outcomes on their own during the summer because they have uninterrupted downtime, the leader might build an inquiry and design process that—yes, takes more time, but, more importantly and effectively—includes and greatly benefits from diverse constituencies, perspectives, and wisdom. This pull, rather than push, process leverages the reality that people are invested in that which they help create.
In the comments below, please feel free to add experiences you’ve had—either as an educator or learning—that illustrate the weakness of “push” and/or the power of “pull.”
