Great Expectations

A group of survey takers are told that pollsters can influence the results of the polls. To avoid that the pollsters are told the must follow explicit instructions: Knock on the door and, as soon as someone answers they are to start reading from a card: "Hello. I am doing a survey and I am reading from this card in order not to influence you.... etc." The poll takers say nothing except what is on the card. One group of pollsters is told the the questionnaire will get 70% positive answers. Another group of pollsters goes out with the same exact instructions, same card, same everything except, they have been told to expect 30% positive responses.

You educators know what happened: the pollsters expecting 70% positives got 70% positives. Those expecting 30% positives got 30% positives. Same card, same questions, same type of communities, same everything. Different results.

The variable was in the expectation of the person asking the question.

Now turn the pollster into the teacher.

The expectations teachers have for their students and the assumptions they make about their potential have a tangible effect on student achievement. Research "clearly establishes that teacher expectations do play a significant role in determining how well and how much students learn" (Jerry Bamburg 1994).

Students tend to internalize the beliefs teachers have about their ability. Generally, they "rise or fall to the level of expectation of their teachers.... When teachers believe in students, students believe in themselves. When those you respect think you can, YOU think you can" (Peggy Gonder 1991). Teachers' expectations for students -- whether high or low -- can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, students tend to give to teachers as much or as little as teachers expect of them.

In short, when teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways. In the famous Oak School experiment, (from Rosenthal's famous Pygmalion in the Classroom book) teachers were led to believe that certain students selected at random were likely to be showing signs of a spurt in intellectual growth and development. At the end of the year, the students of whom the teachers had these expectations showed significantly greater gains in intellectual growth than did those in the control group. This was especially pronounced in first and second graders and in fifth and sixth graders, though less so in third and fourth grade students. Without becoming inundated by a sea of numbers, we can see from one example the degree of significance found. First graders in the control group showed a gain of twelve IQ points; students in the experimental group showed a gain of 27.4 IQ points. Overall, taking the students from the first through the sixth grades, the experimental group showed a 12.22 point gain versus an 8.42 gain for the control group. In short, the group of whom more was expected did significantly better.

So we all know that SFP (Self-Fulfilling Prophecies) are at work when talking about academic achievement. What about behavior? Robert Tauber , the author of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (1997), describes the tendency for SFPs to move from Academic expectations to Character expectations and then to Behavioral expectations of students. His premise is that once a student has been pegged ahead of time as, say, a "troublemaker," the chances are increased that his treatment will, in effect, help our negative prophecies or expectations come true. Here the SFP would work to the detriment of the student. On the other hand, we could peg a student as "cooperative," thus increasing the chances that our treatment of him or her will convey these expectations and, in turn, contribute to the student living up to our original positive prophecy. In this case, the SFP would work to the student's benefit. Teachers, more often than not, get from students what they expect from them!

But, what about the students who are just plain negative? No amount of positive thinking on the part of any teacher is going to change that student, right?

David Reiss, director of psychiatric research at the George Washington University Medical Center, will disagree. He and his team is leading an ambitious study (EGADS) of 310 adopted children where they first identify whether the adopted babies are bubbly and all smiles, or solemn and dour. Next, they are observing how the adoptive parents respond to the children. This response is the "environment" the babies' (presumably) gene-based traits create. The goal is to see whether the parental response alters expression of the traits.

The preliminary findings of the study, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, will ring true to parents. Some kids seem to emerge from the womb with a cheerful disposition. Others seem always cranky, refusing to crack a smile no matter how silly a parent behaves to make them smile. Because solemn babies aren't as much fun as giggly ones, many parents respond to them more impatiently, coldly and even harshly, particularly if the parents are under stress.

In a very real sense, the child's innate disposition -- solemnity -- elicits a certain parental behavior -- harshness and lack of warmth. Their genetic make-up, in other words, creates an environment. This one-two punch can lead to the worst outcome, says Dr. Reiss. Studies hint that when solemn babies reach school age, they have a greater chance of developing conduct disorders, especially oppositional behavior. These are the kids who become bullies and behavior problems. They also have a higher risk of anxiety disorders, which can pave the way to depression and substance abuse.

But the new research suggests that none of this is inevitable. If parents resist responding to a dour baby with harshness, says Dr. Reiss, the genes that underlie solemnity in infancy and oppositional behavior in the teen years may go quiet. Teachers, of course (and especially those in the early grades) must do their part too.

Remember, one characteristic shared by most highly effective teachers is their adherence to uniformly high expectations. They "refuse to alter their attitudes or expectations for their students, regardless of the students' race or ethnicity, life experiences and interests, and family wealth or stability" (Barbara J. Omotani and Les Omotani 1996).