BANK CODE and Children’s Shopping Class

Why am I talking about BANK CODE and Children’s Shopping? Well, this week I did an introductory class on BANK Code in a Class on “Shopping” in an Elementary school. How did this happen?

I had a chance to be a guest teacher at an elementary school. This was an after-school class. The theme of the class was Entrepreneurs, and the children in the class had chosen to focus on “shopping.”

A class on entrepreneurship. Unusual for an elementary school, right? But not necessarily an unwise move. Actually it is brilliant, given that we are in an economy that is more and more entrepreneurial.

Life-time employment is a thing of the past in many industries. And having multiple jobs to make ends meet has been the norm for many people for decades. We see this now often with people having to get second or even third jobs just to make ends meet (think Lyft, Uber, AirBnB, other “disruptive” technologies, etc.).

HOW DO WE LEARN TO SHOP and BUY?

When we think about it, after all, children learn about buying, shopping, consumerism, clothes competition and other things from birth really. Just by growing up with caregivers and others who take them with them shopping, eating out, buying clothes and presents, and watching the same activities on television, in movies, and online. So giving children some great fundamentals regarding how and what to buy is important in an economy that is 70% based on consumer spending. You might even call this education “patriotic.”
WHY WAS I INVITED INTO A CLASSROOM

So, I was invited to the class because of my connection with the teacher and the relevancy of my topic.

As a natural medicine doctor of 3 decades, innovation is important to keep on the cutting edge. Since first learning about BANK Code 4 years ago, I use BANK Code with each patient to improve my results, and often patients find that it can be very helpful in their own lives.
This teacher mentioned a class she was teaching on the topic of “shopping.” Because BANK Code was originally designed and based on understanding “why people buy,” this teacher and I explored the idea that a person’s personality might be one influence in the shopping and buying experience. Children might want to learn something about that.

So, I wrote up a brief proposal, sent it to her, and after a few changes in the schedule, I had a chance to be back in the classroom – the next day! (So I scurried around to get the teaching materials together and rehash how I thought I’d do the activities.)

BANK CODE and Children’s Shopping Class

IN THE “SHOPPING” CLASSROOM

Given a 50 minute time-frame, and with the assistance of the Teacher and Teaching Assistant, I started right in on my sequence of activities. Step by step.

I started out by having brief introductions. I asked each child, one-by-one to tell me what their name is, if they like to speak in front of others in class, and one thing that they have learned in their shopping class. I had to have many of them repeat their names and then spell them for me. Partly because they spoke so softly, and partly because they had names I was not familiar with. After all, this is Berkeley California and there is an amazingly wonderful mixture of people from all over the world.

Did they like to speak in front of a class? Granted, this was 2nd and 3rd graders, with a few 5th graders mixed in. Only about 1/3 said they liked to speak in front of the class. Others said “No,” “It depends,” or “Sometimes.” (This exercise was designed to make sure each and everyone of them was actually sharing their thoughts with the whole class. Another reason I asked this was because I was wondering if their responses corresponded with their personality types.)

And what about the third thing they were to respond about? It was interesting for me to hear their ideas about what they had learned already about shopping. Things like how you should not be afraid to ask questions when you are shopping, to think about whether there is a discount available, and to ask yourself if you really need this particular thing or whether you already have a bunch of them.

PLAYING THE BANK CODE CARD GAME

Once we finished that introduction, I had them fill out a form. Four questions first. They wrote in their name, their favorite color, what they liked to go shopping for, and whether they liked to shop for themselves or for other people.

Next we played the BANK CODE card game. At the top of the form I had copied, in black and grey scales, the 4 BANK Code cards with the pictures on them. The actual cards are the size of a credit card and have bright colors. In this case though I didn’t want the colors of the cards to influence their decisions. That’s why they were in grey scale. (In all honesty, I also didn’t want to spend the money to have them all done with a color copy machine. This was a volunteer activity after all.)

(You also can play the BANK CODE cards at http://www.mybankcode.com/drjay)

I then asked them to look at all the pictures and to then decide which pictures they liked the most. They then wrote a number 1 underneath that card (with the pictures they liked the most). Then they went through and wrote in 2, 3, 4 under the other cards, based on what they liked less and less.

I gave them a second copy of that sheet they filled out and asked them to copy what they did. Then we collected one copy and left the other copy with them (so they could take it back home after school to share what they learned or talked about in class).

REVIEWING THE RESULTS AND SURVEYING THE STUDENTS

Next, I asked the students to raise their hands if they had a 1 underneath the first card. Upper left hand corner. That was the BLUEPRINT one. None of the children chose that as their first card. I went over some of the pictures on that card. And how does this personality type relate to shopping? I mentioned that if they had a store they should be sure to be on time for the store, or a little early, if the customer was a BLUEPRINT type. This is because being early is a common characteristic of the BLUEPRINT behavior and expectation.
I also asked how many of them liked to come to school early. There were a couple of children who raised their hands but took them down quickly when others didn’t.

Next (on the upper right hand corner of the sheet) was ACTION. Nine children raised their hands when I asked about this one. We went through some of the pictures on the card. I asked “How many of you like to sit in your seat all day in school?” None of them did. (Of course, that is what recess and lunch is about at that age.) But, the ACTION type child in particular does not like to have to sit for long periods of time typically.

I pondered as to what question to ask them related to shopping. While thinking to myself that this question is a little irrelevant, nevertheless I asked them “If you are going to buy a car, what kind would you want to buy?” I was a little surprised when the responses were “Lamborghini, Maserati, Tesla, Mercedes,…..and one said Toyota.” They knew the names of luxury cars more than I did!

I had to see if this response was really true. So I thought about the kind of car a very practical person, like a BLUEPRINT, might buy. So I asked “What about a Ford….station wagon.” There was a resounding “No!” response. Given that the typical adult, who is a strongly ACTION type person, is into high-end cars, I was quite fascinated by these children’s responses. In other words, they were consistent with the usual way we observe how an ACTION chooses a car.

Next, I reviewed the pictures for the NURTURING card with them. Sometimes there is confusion on what some of the pictures mean, but the children pretty much got them right. Two of the children chose that as their primary card with pictures they liked. I mentioned that often the NURTURING type person would shop more for other people than they might for themselves because they were always helping other people.

Lastly, I reviewed the pictures on the KNOWLEDGE card – asking the students to tell me what different pictures meant. I then asked them what kinds of things they thought that the KNOWLEDGE type person might shop the most for. They suggested things like electronic devices, books, and Rubic’s cubes. That was very consistent with the pictures on the card.

SHARING THE CLASS TOPIC WITH PEOPLE AT HOME

So, at the end I gave each of them a letter to take back to their homes along with a copy of the sheet that they filled out. I was thinking of stapling the two pages together. But that seemed a bit dull.

Thus, I had purchased some animal paperclips at the Staples store before I went there. They were in the shape of elephants and flamingos. Each student got to choose one or the other to clip the pages together. A couple of the students volunteered to pass them out. There were also some cool elephant and flamingo embossed binder clips that some of the students wanted. While I am a big lover of binder clips myself and I wanted to keep and use them all, my NURTURING side pulled through. Those students who were confident enough to ask got the binder clips as well as either the flamingo or elephant paper clip.

They spontaneously asked me “Where did you get these clips?” I said STAPLES and could also proudly say that I got them on sale, 50 cents for a sheet (8 paperclips and 4 binder clips), marked down from $2.00. (I bought 4 sheets so that I would have enough for a possible 25 students, and actually thought that they were going to cost $1.00 per sheet. But at the cashier’s they were only half that. What a bargain!)

I think that then makes for a great closing statement about my fun as a guest teacher in a class on Shopping.

RESOURCES

(You also can play the BANK CODE cards at http://www.mybankcode.com/drjay)

A tally of the surveys of the children: BANK CODE Shopping class survey tally 10-2017

Dr. Jay Sordean’s speaker’s sheet: DrJay_Sordean Speaker Sheet 7-13-16

An academic study on validating BANK Code predictive behavior — San Francisco State University:  WhitePaper_ExecutiveSummary

More about BANK CODE and Relationships? http://www.theredwoodclinic.com/bank-code-relationships/