According to the book from MIT Press, Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World, the MIT Media Lab determined that they could predict the outcomes of important business negotiations with astounding accuracy. When watching people pitch their business plans in person or even over the telephone the MIT Media Lab correctly predicted the outcome of negotiations 87% of the time!

87% accuracy!

Now here's the amazing part: They were watching videotapes of the people with the sound muted! They didn't listen to a word any of the people said and they predicted the outcomes of business negotiations with 87% accuracy! And even over the phone, peoples' body language revealed volumes about their confidence, their attitudes, and to what degree they appreciated the person on the other end of the phone call. It affected their tone of voice and it accurately signaled to anyone watching what would happen at the end of the phone call 87% of the time.

As teachers, what if the MIT Media Lab watched one of our classes on video with the sound muted? What would our body language say about us? Would it be obvious that we are thrilled to be teaching? Would it be obvious that we enjoyed our students?

Body language betrays how we feel. As I tried to convey in the post from last Friday, we can change our body language dramatically by changing our "insides". If we change our attitudes and our feelings to make them more positive, it will automatically communicate a body language that is more engaging and warm toward our students.

Try it? :-)