 Maybe you've heard about the psychological method called 'conditioning', where you change someone's behaviour without their knowing it, by acting on their subconscious. That's what you're going to try here ... a psychological experiment to condition your teacher to always stand on one side of the room when they're teaching! This is a class project, and might make an interesting science fair experiment. It will require the cooperation of everyone in the class ... except the teacher, who won't know what's going on. In order for this to work, you'll have to pick a teacher who likes to move from one side of the room to the other frequently when they're teaching ... it works best during a 'lecture-style' lesson. (A conditioned behaviour must be one that the subject already does naturally). Most importantly, you'll have to get everyone in the class in on it, and carry on the experiment for several days. (Conditioning requires constant reinforcement). You're going to make the teacher want to be on the left side of the room. (Conditioning requires a reward). Here's what you're going to do. Agree beforehand that whenever the teacher is on the left side of the room, everyone will be totally attentive, enthusiastic, and eager to volunteer answers. (You know, ... the way your class normally is!) You will wave your hand around a lot when answering. Everyone should volunteer answers, even if they don't know the right one. Everyone should make eye contact with the teacher all the time. Everyone should be cheerful. When the teacher moves to the right side of the classroom, however, all this stops. No-one makes eye contact. Nobody volunteers answers. Show no enthusiasm at all. Try to convey the idea that you're there and paying attention, but you don't really care. No smiles. Lots of 'I don't know's when asked questions. Do you see what will happen? The teacher may not know it consciously, but he will want to be on the left side of that room! The experiment should last the length of two periods. During the second period, someone should time the length of the teacher's stay on each side of the room. Your goal is to make him stay on the left side as long as possible ... at which point he's been fully conditioned! When the experiment is over and you've successfully trained your teacher to teach from the left side of the room, let him in on the experiment! Ask him if he noticed the difference. He'll probably be amazed and amused at what's been going on .. and will likely give you all bonus marks for your ingenuity! (Well ... maybe not.) More importantly, you should also have learned something about school. Learning is much more interesting and enjoyable when everyone participates; the teacher can do a better job, because he will sense your enthusiasm, and some of it will rub off ... he won't have to spend time trying to capture your attention, or keeping you on task. You learn a lot more, and you remember it better later, if you participated fully in the lesson. Hopefully you'll be conditioned too! |