We’ve all played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The idea that we are all more connected than we think took off after psychologist Stanley Milgram’s small world experiment. In the late 1960s, Milgram sent a chain letter to residents in Omaha and Wichita. The challenge for participants was to return the letter to a designated person in Boston by handing it off to the fewest people possible. Channeling Disney, Milgram found that it’s a small world after all. It turns out that it took an average of six exchanges to get the letters back to Boston.
What does this have to do with you? Once a week, I profile a public school teacher nominated by his or her peers for doing exceptional work. (See previous “cool teachers you should know” here.) To date, I’ve profiled teachers in Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.
How many degrees of separation are there between you and a teacher in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina? You can find out by either directly nominating a teacher from one of these states or forwarding this message to someone most likely to know a great teacher there. To nominate a teacher, just email me at eduwonkette (at) gmail (dot) com. My hope is to hit all 50 states before the election.