Getting Better: Can we nudge our students toward better habits?

Many years ago, I found myself trapped in an interesting cycle with my dental hygienist. A few times each year, I would stretch out on her chair and sit patiently as she picked at, polished, and flossed my teeth. While the overall health of my mouth held up under her close scrutiny, she always mentioned one habit I couldn’t seem to shake. “Ben, you’re still brushing too hard. You really have to chill out when you brush. You’re wearing down your gums.” Every year, we had the same conversation. I simply couldn’t shake the habit. I’m still not sure what I thought was on my teeth that necessitated such herculean effort to remove, but each day I’d grip that toothbrush like Captain Ahab and his harpoon on the Pequod and go to battle with my teeth. However, deep down, I knew I had to change my behavior in order to prevent the demise of my gums. 

After many years of the same conversation, my hygienist tried something different. After the usual conversation about my incessant predilection for brushing with the force of a thousand waterfalls, she told me something that changed my behavior overnight. She said, “Alright Ben, how about this. When you brush, think about peeling a clementine. You should use about the same force. Something that may help you is to actually peel a clementine and leave a piece of the peel near your toothbrush.” I added emphasis to the last phrase because that directive is precisely what led to the behavior change. When I got home, I did as she instructed. I peeled a clementine and put the peel right next to my toothbrush. I woke up the next morning, saw the peel, and treated my teeth and gums much more humanely. After years of failure, I had changed my habit. Overnight. The best thing my hygienist gave me that day was not the complimentary toothbrush and floss. Rather, it was a nudge.

As defined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their book Nudge, a “nudge” is “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.” They go on to state that in order to be implemented successfully, the intervention must be easy. One example would be rearranging the placement of items in a school cafeteria, such as moving the salad bar from the wall to the center of the cafe to increase the consumption of healthy food and decrease the intake of junk food (banning junk food would not be considered a nudge, as nudges are not mandates…). Another, more humorous, example would be the city of Amsterdam’s endeavor of placing pictures of flies as targets in men’s urinals to reduce spillage and increase cleanliness of their public bathrooms. Seatbelt buzzers in cars, salting the tip jar, and increasing or decreasing the size of popcorn buckets are all examples of nudges in our daily lives that may barely register after being entrenched in our environment for years. A more consequential nudge would be having to opt out (instead of opt in) to a high-quality retirement plan. By doing nothing, people make the best “choice.” Some companies even opt their employees in to a default savings plan whereby their contribution to a retirement account increases commensurate with pay increases. After all, the best way to save money is to make it automatic.

Changing human behavior is excruciatingly difficult. This mantra applies just as much to students as adults. At times, students do not consistently engage in class, they miss too many days of school, they fail to complete homework regularly, they do not study for exams, they arrive late to class, they don’t make up missing assignments. The list goes on. Naturally, as educators, we become frustrated, exasperated by what seems like a constant battle to encourage students to make the choices necessary to access higher levels of education. At times, these challenges lead to broad, sweeping curricular, instructional, or structural changes, sometimes incredibly time-consuming and expensive, when a small nudge would make a big difference.

For example, as a part of our 8th Grade On-Track Projects here at United Schools Network, we are using Empathy Interviews to unearth and analyze the root cause of students’ off-track status. During the Empathy Interview, we use the Five Whys methodology popularized by Toyota to start with the problem (i.e. “James was on-track in 6th grade, just under on-track in 7th, and off-track in 8th grade Trimester 1.”) and drive toward the root cause (i.e. “James dislikes doing his reading homework, and as a result does it last, often on the bus route to school in the morning.”). In the image above you can examine each “Why” of James’ empathy interview as we drive nearer and nearer to the root cause of his off-trackness. If we were to skip this important step, we may implement an intervention for a group of students that doesn’t match the root cause of their struggle. For example, schools may place students like James in an intervention slot and allocate extra resources to him, assuming his grade is low because he lacks foundational academic skills. However, James just needs a kick in the butt when it comes to completing homework. He needs a nudge.

The challenge with implementing nudges in schools is that nudges are not designed to be mandates; rather, they embody “libertarian paternalism” - the individual still has a choice, but they’re given a gentle push in the right direction. Yet much of what we do in schools is very much a mandate! However, when you step back and reflect, nobody can (legally) force another person to do anything, even in the teacher-student dynamic. As educators, we encourage, we cheer, we support, we intervene, we listen, we direct, we instruct... but we can’t force. We can nudge. Using the example of James, perhaps a good nudge would be to tape a brightly colored post-it inside of his homework folder that says “Reading first!” Perhaps the post-it could be taped to his desk, and when the teacher circulates at the beginning of the intervention period, s/he lightly taps on the post-it three times as James is getting out his homework folder as a reminder to tackle his reading prior to other subjects. Leaping ahead technologically, one could envision an app that sends push notifications (i.e. nudges) for specific actions students should take to improve their grades. The possibilities are endless.

There is no magic wand in the field of education. This work is unyieldingly messy. Nevertheless, if cleverly designed nudges can help us get even just a handful of additional students on track with little investment of time and resources, we can direct more attention to those that need the most - those that need much more than a small behavioral nudge to get on track. As educators, we have many roles and titles. Let’s add one more: “Architect of Choice.” Whether we realize it or not, we are all choice architects in our schools and classrooms, making it easy or hard for students to make positive choices. We should constantly reflect…what are the “clementine peels” that are going to help our students succeed?

Ben Pacht is the Director of Improvement of the School Performance Institute in Columbus, Ohio. The School Performance Institute is the learning and improvement arm of the United Schools Network. Send feedback to bpacht@unitedschoolsnetwork.org.