GULATI

I just started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s written collection from The New Yorker, called “What the Dog Saw.” As typical with most of Malcolm’s work, I’m only two chapters in, and I couldn’t help but have a flash of inspiration.

In his piece, “The Ketchup Conundrum“, Malcolm Gladwell examines and investigates the reasons why mustard, spaghetti sauce, olive oil, salad dressing and the like can wildly succeed having competitors offering a variety of flavors, while Heinz ketchup has and will always remain ketchup as it is – without any significant or blended competitive varietals.

Malcolm ponders: Why is this so? Why do similar rules not apply for Heinz ketchup as they do for other condiments? Why is it that every new competitor that tries to out-invent Heinz ketchup by offering a new flavor ends up failing miserably?  What did Heinz do right that customers remain so loyal to the original recipe and brand?

Malcolm suggests that the primary reason for this conundrum is rooted in the fact that people instinctively seek the five fundamental tastes in their palette: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. The problem with mustard is that each variety only covered a subset of taste buds; whereas the genius behind Heinz is that they came up with a condiment that “pushed all five of these primal buttons” together.  As a result, there was never a need to offer a variety of ketchup flavors when all the taste bud needs were well served within the existing Heinz palette.

Malcolm continues, “The taste of Heinz’s ketchup began at the tip of the tongue, where our receptors for sweet and salty first appear, moved along the sides, where sour notes seem the strongest, then hit the back of the tongue, for umami and bitter, in one long crescendo. How many things in the supermarket run the sensory spectrum?”

Makes sense, right? So how does this have anything to do with our educational system?

Let me attempt to explain.

I was particularly intrigued by Malcolm’s choice of words, “sensory spectrum”.  If we use the same condiment analogy, one could say that our existing educational system – specifically our course curricula – are built somewhat like mustard, i.e. one that contains a variety of flavors each meeting a subset of our palatal needs. Depending on the course profile, classes are usually delivered using only a subset of the following teaching styles – didactic lectures, case studies, online sessions/webinars, experiential workshops, panelists, and so on – each being the equivalent of one sensory taste bud within our extensive learning palette. Similar is the case for the assignments we ask of our students.  While some techniques are passive, others are interactive.

For decades, studies have consistently revealed that the more sensory neurons we fire in our brain, the greater our neurons crossfire and connect, resulting in an enhanced learning ability and capacity. We exercise our brain muscle in ways that create better learners.

If we were to consider each one of these teaching styles/formats to be one ingredient along the sensory spectrum, how then could we create a multi-sensory, multi-modal educational curricula that is the equivalent of Heinz ketchup recipe that covers each of the senses that our students’ learning palettes desire and seek?

I suggest we take a lesson from the history books of Heinz Ketchup and begin thinking of ways to create a multi-sensory, multi-modal learning experience in our classroom. We might just create more satisfied and better prepared learners who actually enjoy the classroom experience.

[Note: I don’t (yet) have the answers to the hypothesis I propose above, but I am certainly doing my part by exploring combinations of new multi-sensory teaching modules in my classroom at Johns Hopkins. Now in my 4^th year running, I can happily say that each year that I introduce a new sensory learning experience into my curriculum, the more satisfied my students are in their confidence and ability to apply what they’ve learned in the real world.]