Marketing and marketers often have a bad press, because we assimilate them with manipulation, often with reason; how can we justify encouraging younger generations to start smoking, trying alco-pops or driving cars that we know are harmful to the environment ?
While we could argue until the end of time about this, I decided to focus on a different aspect of marketing, where the marketer understands her responsibilities and uses her skills to bring better.
Better through improved hygiene, more exercise, or a healthier lifestyle. Like everything else , marketing has two sides to it, and I am going to talk about its good side, and how we teachers can bring this to the classroom.
Years of research have uncovered improved ways to talk to our subconscious and just like marketers, we teachers now have the tools to change our clients (ahem… students) for the better.
As more and more teachers leave the profession every day and we are increasing threatened by artificial intelligence, is there anything that we can do to change what education is about, not only for the benefit of our students but for us teachers as well ?
Metcalf’s law posits that the value of a [telecommunication] system is proportional to the square value of the [connected] users of that system. As we move away from the industrial age, the next curve is all about connection.
A year or so after the COVID-19 lockdown, I asked my students whether there would be teachers in the future, and the overwhelming majority answered “yes”. When I asked them why, it turns out that while remote learning was not a technological challenge in itself, the lack of connection with their peers and with their teachers had been. People seek connection, and part of our job is to bring this connection to life.

Your students are lucky to have you, because you are the one who can bring this connection to the classroom, and in turn change its culture for the benefits of all.