I wasn’t sure what to write about this week. So, feeding on the idea that we learn from each other’s experiences, I carried out a little straw poll. I asked members of my team, friends and acquaintances to think back and tell me about a school lesson that they particularly remember and enjoyed. For some of us, that meant a memory that was between 30 and 40 years old – and had been retained all of that time.
Would you like your training events to be remembered in 30 or 40 years?
If so, you may be interested in the remarkable consistency there was between the responses.
Here are a just a few quotes from those who participated:
“The lesson that stands out the most would have to be when we were studying Macbeth; our teacher devoted a whole lesson to the class planning the perfect murder. Not the most obvious lesson plan, but it got us thinking about what it would take to get it right, and in doing so got us thinking about the mindset of Lord and Lady Macbeth.”
“I particularly remember a French lesson when we were not allowed to speak any English from the minute we walked through the door. We had various challenges to do (that would have been difficult in English!) and in our teams we had to come up with a plan and complete the challenges only speaking French. I think I remember it so well because it really surprised me that we managed to do it."
“The lesson was being given a photo and then asked to write a story around it. Mine was a woman walking out of a store and she was dropping her parcels.”
“Mrs Rigby: We had a single lesson on a Friday afternoon and she used to read to us ('Call of the Wild amongst others'). She was so good at making the stories come alive, and she is responsible for my love of reading now.”
“When I was nine, I was given the role of a Minah bird (as opposed to cat) in Dick Whittington. It was a comic role that involved me singing ‘Whatever one toucan can do’ to Offenbach’s Can Can music. I still remember all the words (and the dance) today. In fact, it’s a struggle not to sing along (and dance) whenever I hear that tune. I loved drama at that point but my interest in it vanished at secondary school, due to a different teaching style.”
It’s easy to see why these experiences were memorable. They were created by teachers who were passionate about learning and they were fun. They’re remembered because they were unusual and they inspired the learners because they didn’t rely on the teacher giving the learners information – they involved story-telling and, for the most part, the learners discovering for themselves.
Those are exactly the same principles we apply when designing our
learning materials, because the way our brains work and the way we learn doesn’t change as we get older. In fact, because our brains are designed to NOT remember the mundane, it becomes
even more important to design training that is different and surprising. After all, so much that inspired us as a child is just, well, normal now.
We pride ourselves on designing activities that people talk about long after the training event has finished. We passionately believe that even though we’re older, effective learning still needs to be the same magical, experience.
And much much more to discover.
I'd love to hear your school anecdotes. They might even inspire a new Trainers' Library activity, as I'm sure some of the examples I've already been given will. So, what's the lesson or piece of homework that most inspired you?