1.“Tipping Point” is stated as being the biography of an idea…a time that changes quickly from a certain dramatic situation…a time when everything seems to change.The components of the tipping point are the incident at hand has little changes that have a big effect and that these changes happen at a rapid pace, along with the idea that the changes that are taking place are very contagious.
2.The point that something “tips” can be pretty unpredictable.What has a huge affect on when a change is going to occur has a great deal to do with the person that is directly affected to the change.If the person is a ram rod, a leader, a respected individual that tipping point takes effect immediately, being one of the main components of the concept, being referred to as the “boiling point.”
3.As I understand gradualism, which is that it is the concept that big ideas happen over a period of time or gradually, I disagree with Gladwell that gradualism is a norm in our society.If we look at our youth today, their actions are far from being gradual.Take for example if a girl sees the latest sheik pair of boots on American Idol, the bet that she tries to get to the mall that next weekend to find the same pair of boots is highly likely.The same holds true for the educational world.If one school district decides that they are going to spend the money to use the new MAPS assessment program and have had success with the time element and the efficiency component that school district is going to promote that product.Now if that school system has a history of being academically successful, everyone is going to want to jump on the band wagon.However, if the school district has had negative publicity from the educational public, school officials are going to second guess whether the assessment program is worth investing in.This same concept holds true for the teaching techniques that we choose to have in our classroom.Two summers ago most of our staff participated in the Colorado Writing Project for two weeks.We were sold…we experienced the power of this program first hand and in a very short amount of time.The upcoming fall rolled around and we all decided as a district to try the new techniques out on our students (we decided as a group to keep consistency in our curriculum).There was no gradualism in our thinking…we decided that the only way to do this was to jump right in and take a chance.Maybe that is what it all boils down to is taking a chance.If this is the case I can see where Gladwell is coming from because I think our society today is afraid to take a chance, to take that dive for fear of failure, especially in education because the stakes seem to be so high these days.
Chapter 1:The Three Rules of Epidemics
1.The three rules of epidemics are the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.
2.The 80/20 principle states that 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the people.
3.R.J. Reynolds was one of the most powerful “tippers” known to the advertising community, being the producers of the Winston cigarette company.They made an offending slogan into a lyric of a popular jingle that caught the attention of the public drastically.They were quick to defend their slogan as a catchy tune rather that a grammatical error and it afforded them millions of dollars, along with causing a certain type of “social epidemic” that would haunt the world for decades to come.
