How can teachers change their expectations?

Self fulfilling prophecy. Every teacher know it exists. Robert Rosenthal is most famous for bringing this idea to light in the classroom. He completed a study in San Francisco where he told teachers that this very special test from Harvard, which was really just an IQ test, had the very special ability to predict which kids were about to be very special — that is, which kids were about to experience a dramatic growth in their IQ. He then selected randomly selected students and told their teachers that these students were about to be very special and by the end of the year they were. Why? Because the teachers had high expectations for these students. As Rosenthal continued to do more research, he found expectations affect teachers' moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more. This is all wonderful to know, but as we discussed in my EDFI 4080 class this Friday, how does one do that. I recently read an article entitled Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform by NPR Morning Edition reporter Alix Spiegel. He asked the question, "since expectations can change the performance of kids, how do we get teachers to have the right expectations? Is it possible to change bad expectations?" This brought him to find Robert Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Pianta understands that the traditional way of talking to teachers' and telling them their beliefs are wrong does not work. It's not effective to try to change their thoughts; the key is to train teachers in an entirely new set of behaviors. He even gives 7 ways teachers can change their expectations. Observe the students so you know all they are capable of. Listen and try to understand what motivates them, what their goals are, and how they view you, your classroom, their classmates, and the activities you assigned them. Talk to students about their interests. Each week, spend time with a student outside your role as a teacher. Reach out and know what students like to do outside of school. Finally reflect and think back on your own best and worst teachers, bosses or supervisors. List five words for each that describe how you felt in your interactions with them. How did the best and the worst make you feel? What specifically did they do or say that made you feel that way? Now think about how your students would describe you. Jot down how they might describe you and why. How do your expectations or beliefs shape how they look at you? Are there parallels in your beliefs and their responses to you?

This speech article, while it may seem simple, can actually have a big impact of teachers across the nation. As i said, everyone knows self fulfilling prophecy exists, it would be pretty hard to argue the opposite. Now the question is how do we take the knowledge of its existence and use it to make our classrooms better. Everyone goes into a classroom and the very first day judges their students to know which ones are the "good" kids and which ones aren't. However instinctual this practice may be, it can be extremely detrimental to our students, so we must find a way to combat this. Spiegel's article finds a realistic way to do this that really doesn't take much time. In fact it can be done by anyone, all it takes is simply changing our behaviors and our beliefs will follow.