Pamela Henderson Emily Sands

April 27, 2015

Teaching and Learning 301

Great Books Assignment: Blink

Blink written by Malcolm Gladwell is a novel about rapid cognition. It explains

the kind of thinking that people undergo in the blink of an eye such as meeting a new

person for the first time or watching the first few seconds of a movie. In Blink Gladwell

explains how this rapid cognition can be as informative as spending a lot of time

processing information about the subject. Gladwell reveals that decision-making has less

to do with how much information you are given and more to do with the ability to focus

on a few, particular details. This book, although not a traditional teaching resource, can

offer insightful information on how children learn and how important first impressions

are in both life and classroom settings.

The dominating theme in Blink is the importance of rapid cognition. This refers to

the connections your brain makes about a new stimulus in the first few seconds you are

exposed to them. It is still not quite known whether snap judgments are best or if making

an informed decision is most beneficial. Gladwell says there is no right answer, he states

the best we can do, I think, is try to puzzle out the right mix of conscious and

unconscious analysis on a case-by-case basis. (Gladwell, 2005) This is important for

teachers because they are presented with a new classroom of students every year and the

first impressions they make on the students can set the tone for the rest of the year. The

students make their decision about the teacher in the first few minutes of being in their
classroom. This determines how well students will learn over the next year. Which could

determine their success over their entire schooling career.

This book has many benefits to all kinds of professions including teachers. When

I completed my volunteer hours at the local elementary school I saw many of the themes

discussed in the book in action. For example humans are naturally good at thin slicing,

which is the ability for our brain to draw connections from very little experience. This

ability is used all the time by all kinds of people and often goes unnoticed but it carries

extreme importance in our day-to-day activity. Thin slicing has many advantages but it

can also be negative if individuals dont ever get past the initial opinion. This initial thin

slicing can lead to prejudice, which is a huge problem teachers have to deal with.

According to Woolfolk, By about age 6, over half the White children in the United

States and 85% of students in a Canadian sample had significant pro-White, anti-Black

biases. (Woolfolk, pp. 220) Teachers need to recognize this prejudice and approach

different ways on how to keep it out of their class. During my time at the local

Elementary school I noticed some small hints of prejudice in the classroom. For example

there was a group of girls who were very selective about whom they were friends with

and the teacher I volunteered with scheduled meetings with the girls and their parents and

organized the class to promote the girls to work together. I think the teacher did a really

good job of recognizing the problem and being proactive about solving it.

Overall this book had a lot of dominating themes that are very applicable to the

classroom setting. By understanding how people think and process new information

teachers can better connect and understand their students. I thought this was an extremely

interesting book and Im glad I chose it for my great books assignment.

 Citation

Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little,

Brown and.

Hoy, A., & Nicolich, L. (1980). Educational psychology for teachers. Englewood Cliffs,

N.J.: Prentice-Hall.