Teacher Center Director Debbie Stout refers to the Ninja Effect:

"You train a few select people and then send them into their school with skills that others want to copy because they see the successes happening next door.

Project Director Don Mesibov describes an example of the Ninja Effect in this Initiative:

"Last year, two of our pilot teachers, designing learner centered classrooms, were Becky Buckingham and Beth Konkoski from Lisbon High School. During the year, the student evidence of their successes was plentiful, but they kept informing us of the negative comments of some of their colleagues. Fortunately, they ignored these colleagues, and proceeded with their learner centered approaches. As part of our philosophy, we, too, ignored resistors and focused our resources and support on the teachers who were creating our models.

"Last June, we asked Becky and Beth (and Karen Cunningham their administrator) if they could solicit three more teachers and two parents to work on their team, this year, along with ten "roll-out" teachers who would commit to taking a learner centered Internet course. In June, at Ms. Cunningham's invitation, I met with the teachers, parents and roll-out teachers. Instead of the five teachers (including Becky and Beth) whom we had requested, six volunteers were there. Instead of two parents, there were three, and there were ten "roll-out" teacher volunteers. All told, this represented more than half the high school staff, plus three parents and the building principal.

"What became clear to me as I met with these teachers and parents was that they didn't need to be sold on what we were doing,. They had bought in on the basis of what they had observed of Becky and Beth. They were willing to change their teaching practices because of the models they observed in their building. They may not have been as vocal as the resistors, during the previous year, but they were buying in to a new way of teaching.

"As I subsequently visited the teachers in each of the other five schools we are proposing as models in this year¹s grant, the experience was the same. The presence of two teachers, on their faculties, who had spent a year creating learner centered classrooms, had attracted others who wanted to move in the same direction - the Ninja Effect.

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