Every kid, and probably every person no matter what their age, wants to be known for something. For all people, including school age kids, the choices to eat, wear, play and/or listen to something so often it becomes their own individual trademark goes a long way to inform us as to what school should offer--individualized choices for each person.
At school there is the kid who wears socks up to his knees and shorts everyday, the jersey kid, the hair kid, the shorts and sandals kid (living in Wisconsin, it gets to be a challenge in the winter), the no jacket kid, the kid with funny sayings on his shirt, the branded kid eg. (Nike, Under Armor). The list is so long and diverse that kids take their identity and notoriety from what happens at other times of the day--before school, on the bus, at lunch or after school.
Think of the power that choice of what to be known for, has for people. To be an individual, to choose their own path and to celebrate what makes them different from everyone else, kids will even go so far as to eat something like a frozen pizza everyday. Pizza is great, but eating one everyday? Yuck! Think of what must go through someone's head everyday when they know they face 40+ minutes at lunch standing on the playground in shorts and sandals with a foot of snow on the ground just to keep their streak going!
Robert Cialdini, in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (see a summary here), gives this willingness to do the same thing over and over a specific name--consistency. It is one of the things which causes people to do many things they would not ordinarily do just to make it seem to others like we haven't changed.
Dan Ariely discusses the fact that people continually make choices not in their own best interest in his book, Predictably Irrational.
According to Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art, the bad choices we make are a result of the Resistance trying to distract us from what is truly important to us.
I think everyoneDon't we owe it to them to give them a chance to defeat the Resistance by giving students dedicated time in class to work on something they are passionate about so they will be able to focus on something they really want to do like: growing tomatoes, welding, trapping animals, writing computer code or any other topic? Through Genius Hour, every student has the chance to be known for how well they can do something. If you haven't ever heard of or have had your students do a Genius Hour project, check out Joy Kirr's LiveBinder for a plethora of information from many veterans in Genius Hour. Most of us have about 2-3 weeks of summer without professional development, committees, or grad classes. Consider doing Genius Hour next year. Better yet, have your class do one, and have your district allow teachers to do one.
I'm not saying kids still won't make sure they have a Hello Kitty item visible at all times, but when they are known for the passion they have about a topic and how they have used that topic to help others, maybe that will take over for Hello Kitty.
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