Back to top

Oh pooh!

In a curriculum redesign strategy workshop with the Dean and Chairs of a very prestigious East-coast Ivy League school, suddenly a very stuffy, old, white man stood up to say: “Our students GIVE a shit!” so emphatically, I captured it. Of course I drew a turd!! But I made it rather large. It also happened to fall right in the middle of the board. 
 
Later that afternoon, I overheard some of the department chairs as they stood in front of the board laughing like hyenas over the fact I’d drawn small details on the turd like flies, fumes, and corn kernels. For the next two days, every once in a while, as they talked through their action planning work in plenary, we’d suddenly hear, “Because our students GIVE a shit!” and the whole room would erupt into giggles. 
 
BONUS: Even better, the facilitator started the final decision-making conversation by asking the following question with a facial expression more serious than the pope's, “So... HOW do we make our students GIVE a SHIT?!”