Minnesota’s TOY, Mike Smart, links a few psyche experiments through Gladwell’s Blink and on the other end concludes:

In the first six seconds of class on the first day of school your students can accurately judge your effectiveness as a teacher, even if they can’t hear a word you say.

He asks what effective teachers convey in those wordless six seconds. My response, profanity elided:

They’re looking for any indication that the person in front of the class (who will spend a lot of time in front of the class over the semester) has retained, in spite of her years immersed in the same preps, her curiosity, her empathy for those who don’t know what she knows, and her intolerance of boredom. You can tell from body language, posture, and facial expression alone that a teacher still loves her stuff and knows how to sell it to you.

Comments are closed here but weigh in on his tasty prompt over there.