The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell "How little things can make a big difference"

A few of my good friends read this book about 6 or 7 years ago. It is one of "those" books that many people make reference to and I am tired of saying "I have not read that book but I would like to." The book premise is quite simple but is incredibly engaging and thought provoking. Gladwell starts his book with a brief description of how Hush Puppy shoes made an astounding resurgence in the mid 1990s. He believes that it was just a few kids started wearing them to clubs "because no one else would wear them.". Some major fashion designers caught wind of the HP New York trend and word spread. The company went from selling 430,000 to four times that the next year. Amazing.

As I read the first few pages of book and the pages after that I constantly think about how can we have a trend (positive of course) spread through the school. Trends that impact both the students and the teachers. What can we do to have positive behavior spread throughout the hallways and classrooms? How can best practices that teachers use spread throughout the classrooms as well? What can we do the stop the "negative" trends? How do we get the message out and sustain it? Face to Face? Facebook? I do believe that if we can do little things in a school and they we can make a profound change. i think that the little things will be different for every school. I will be pondering those thoughts and I continue to read the book.

What are the "little" things that you do in your school that make a big difference?