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  Home > Resources > Library and Links > Online Postings & Articles > Selling Education

Selling Education

Jon Clauss, GTF, Math

Last Spring I received a list of GTFs who had won teaching awards in various disciplines. On the recommendations of staff members and students, I decided to ask Jon Clauss, GTF Mathematics, for permission to videotape one of his class sessions. He invited me to visit his Honors College Calculus class.

The focus of the class was on developing a mathematical formula for predicting the population growth in the United States. Right away he had my attention. According to the formula, the population would double in the next forty years. The balance of the class was spent discussing the implications of this.

Jon Clauss's teaching style is highly energetic. His voice rises and falls. He moves back and forth across the front of the room. His body responses to points of emphasis by crouching to an eye-to- eye level with his students.

I had thoroughly enjoyed his class and wanted to know to what he attributed his success in the classroom. He mentioned on the way to his next class that he owed a lot of what he knew about teaching to the sales training he received in a job during his undergraduate years.

Intrigued by this, I called to ask if he would be willing to be interviewed on the topic of "Education as Sales" for the LIZARD.

Jon: The thing that you need, I feel, to be a good teacher is an interest in the subject. I really like mathematics. I see it as an on going process. I don't see it as a bunch of little packages - Algebra, Geometry, Calculus. I see it as a way of approaching the world, how the world works, how people work and how the mind works. And that excites the hell out of me.

Lizard: How do you use math to figure out how people work

Jon: It has to do with how people think, how they reach conclusions. I taught an Honors College class called "Proving Your Convictions." We talked about the mathematical method of proof. First we make assumptions. On those assumptions, using the tools of logic, we come to conclusions.

In this class students had to examine why they believed what they believed in a way they never had before. That's what mathematics is all about. Math is often very dry and a lot of people would see it as not being directly applicable to life's problems. But all of that stuff is merely a framework within which one practices thinking.

Lizard: I want you to talk about how your previous sales training influenced your teaching.

Jon: The thing I remember my sales manager saying over and over was - "Paint a picture, paint a picture. Make them get something into their heads. Then when you're saying these words, they'll have a mental image in their minds. And they'll own that. They will remember and use it."

Lizard: What is it about a picture that's so powerful?

Jon: One of my favorite sayings is attributed to Confucius. I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. So it's the seeing that's the second step in the process. I see people"click" when they get the mental picture.

Lizard: You talked before about sales training and learning to read you. Can you say more about that?

Jon: I was in the Peace Corps for seven years. At one point in my career I taught the same class five times a day, five days a week. The skill I was able to hone at that time was letting the message come through, but really being able to concentrate on the audience. I concentrated on the faces, the body movements, the gestures and let a lot more information come in. I learned the importance of that technique as a salesman and feel it is very important for my work as a teacher. There are always five or more students in any class with expressive faces. You learn to look for those people. You learn to recognize confused looks and then draw out of them what confuses them.

Another sales technique is to never say more than three statements at a time. One of my personal goals is to always throw in questions as much as possible.

Lizard: I'd also like for you to talk about what happens in your class on the first day for the benefit of our readers who will be experiencing their first day for perhaps the first time this fall.

Jon: The most important thing to me is to let students know who's in charge - who's responsible for how the class goes. I don't try to act mean and I tell them, "I expect you to work hard. I work hard and I expect you to do the same. My job is to prepare you for whatever comes next in the sequence. Of course, I have my own agenda. I want them to come away with a better appreciation of mathematics.

Lizard: Do your students get out early on the first day?

Jon: I never let them go early. I start right out. In my subject area there's always a lot of mathematical baggage. I ask them what they remember about their earlier math experiences. The very first day we all learn each other's names. My version of this is to have each person say their name with an adjective that sounds like the initial sound in the name - Scholarly Scott. I start out each term with a name game. I never thought this was important in a calculus class. But I realize now that it's important in every class.

The whole experience in the Honors College has really changed me. I see the importance of building a group and building a group identity, finding all the resources in the class and getting everyone to work together. I'm going to do things a lot differently in the future because of this experience.

Lizard: Any last pearls of wisdom to pass on to your peers?

Jon: I wish there was some way we could hire a roving student to just go around to classes and go up to the teacher and say, "You're a really good teacher." You need to hear that at least once. Then you're plugged in. Then you care.

There's a dichotomy between people who are in this life for themselves and those who are in this life to make the world a better place. And I think the latter make better teachers.

Lizard 5 Fall 92

 

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