Nudges in the Queue
‘Nudge theory’ is about giving choices to people with a careful balance of incentives that leads to them making decisions that are best for them and and those around them. Nudges can save teachers time and energy and these ideas should be much better known and used in schools. This blog gives a practical illustration from the school dinner hall.
Libertarianism has an image problem. Anti-vaxxers, drug users and back-woods militias and are not great role models for schools. Yet libertarianism just means believing that people should be free to make their own choices. Who doesn’t instinctively support that?
At the opposite end of the spectrum lies ‘Paternalism’, which has its own perception issues. This is the belief that organisations (and particularly governments) should be free to influence people in order to make their lives longer, healthier and better. Sounds reasonable, yet we are quick to grumble about the ‘nanny-state’ overstepping boundaries when these interfere with our right to have fun.
Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s work on ‘Nudges’ combines the best of both worlds to move people’s decisions in a predictable way without forbidding any options. Let me use the lunch queue as an example of when a well chosen nudge solved a school issue with the minimum fuss, energy and stress.
Our lunchtime supervisors were having a real struggle to maintain discipline in the queue (especially on fish and chip day). They didn’t know the names of students, they weren’t co-ordinated and their use of discipline procedures was often making matters worse. The students took full advantage. We had tried rollicking whole year groups and pulling out individuals but each time the situation quickly reverted to the stressful status quo. A small number of students were having a high time at the expense of the majority of lovely youngsters being pushed around and the supervisors tearing their hair out.
In the knowledge that nothing else was working we decided to try and nudge the situation into a better place. Firstly, the supervisors pointed out the main culprits and we were able to put names to faces, removing the mask of anonymity. These students were then called together during registration the following morning and offered a choice. They could either behave well in the queue, be polite to the supervisors and receive their lunch as normal. Or they could continue their poor behaviour, be refused service at the food counter and return at the end of lunch to have whatever food was left over, (think congealed macaroni cheese).
To facilitate this we made sure that each supervisor had a walkie-talkie and a pen. Each student was given a card with the days of the week printed on which fitted snugly in the blazer breast pocket. The final supervisor signed each card if the student hadn’t been mentioned on the radio. Any student without a signature was turned away.
The results were remarkable. We introduced the system on Monday lunchtime and made sure that a member of SLT was hovering close enough to intervene if necessary. Two students were sent from the queue, huffing and puffing about being innocent and unfairly punished (they didn’t mention paternalism or a ‘nanny-state’). On Tuesday a different student was turned away - and that was it. The queue was quiet, orderly and stress free. Most remarkable of all, some of the ‘naughtiest’ students were now joking and bantering with the supervisors in good humour.
No students were given a punishment, no member of staff took any action (beyond signing a card and talking into a radio) but the problem was resolved. Of course, we had to do reminders every few weeks if things started to slide but the queue never went back to its ‘Wild-West’ days. Once you’ve had one success with this approach, you’ll spot many other opportunities to intervene - so get nudging!
