One day I picked my daughter up from high school and she was very excited. “Dad, I received my math test back, and with a bonus question I got 106 percent!” “That’s great,” I replied. “But you know your mother expects 110 percent.” She gave me a long serious look, and then we both burst out laughing. The message her mother and I have always tried to convey to her is that we know she is capable of success, and as a result she is expected to succeed. Having high expectations for our children should be encouraged not only at home but at school as well. Research shows that given the same resources, all students can learn if they are held to the same expectations.
Sadly, the opposite can also be true. If we as parents or educators don’t have faith in the abilities of our children or students to succeed, chances are they won’t. This power of expectations is called the Pygmalion effect or the “Self-fulfilling Prophecy.”
In George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion, the character Eliza Doolittle is dramatically transformed mostly by Professor Higgins’ belief or expectation that her place in society is largely a matter of how she is treated by others. Or, as she describes it to a friend of the professor:
” … You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.”
The Pygmalion effect can be used as a tool by teachers to convey positive expectations and, maybe even more importantly, to avoid conveying negative expectations.
A teacher friend of mine once shared that while preparing a lesson plan on personal choices to a group of low achieving high school students, mostly Hispanic, she caught herself by the negativity of her approach and message, even though statistically the examples she had chosen were applicable to that particular group. Originally, she was going to discuss and explain the consequences of personal choices like dropping out of school, joining a gang, getting pregnant, and so on. Instead, she tried a different approach emphasizing the positive; she discussed the benefits of personal choices like going to college, getting a part-time job, joining a school club or a sports team. After she gave the revised lesson to the class, one of her students came up to her and asked, “What kind of grades do I need to get into college?” For this particular group, at least one student that day considered a choice before her that perhaps no one else had ever suggested. The teacher realized that she needed to raise her expectations for her students – and for herself as an educator.
Does this mean if we expect our children to ace their math test, they will? Or that if we suggest to all students to be college bound, they will be? Maybe. It depends on how those expectations are communicated to the student both verbally and non-verbally.
In a book called Looking into Classrooms, many teachers that participated in a study reported that they spent equal time between high and low achieving students; however, they were shocked when videos revealed that 95% of the teachers’ interactions were with high and regular achieving students and only 5% with low achieving students. Unconsciously, teachers keep a greater physical distance between themselves and low achieving students, they listen less and ask fewer questions to low achieving students as well as several other observable behaviors. The fact is that no teacher consciously treats the low achieving student different, but unconsciously it can occur. Low achieving students, as a result of ongoing low achieving behaviors toward them, unconsciously become as they are treated.
Studies show that intellectual development and school performance can improve if students are held to higher expectations and those expectations clearly communicated to the students and reinforced by their parents and the community at large. Although educators and researchers may not agree on the best method to do so, there are successful educational programs that use the Pygmalion effect to produce positive student outcomes. Raising the awareness of teachers to consciously treat low achieving students with higher expectations as my friend did can be a start.
Mario Bañuelos has lived in Morgan Hill for 19 years. He has served on the South Valley Dayworker Committee and is a member of the Morgan Hill Community Foundation. He is married and has four children. Reach him at mb*******@ch*****.net.
