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In Your Corner, Student Learning, Thinking Frames
High Expectations: Our Superpower
These are times when we need to tap every strategy, technique, and advantage we can use to help our students succeed. In many ways young people are still finding their way back from the pandemic. They need to make up for lost learning time and accelerate their academic progress. It’s not easy when they struggle to regain their social identities, develop new relationship skills, and reestablish their positioning with peers. They also are looking for support on which they can depend as they make their way through normal developmental tasks and trials.
Our commitment to teach, coach, guide, and mentor students through this time represents a significant challenge. We don’t always know the best thing to do or the best time to do it. We may not know what new skills to develop or what new tools to adopt. However, there is one gift we can give to our students that requires no new skills or tools and requires no extra time or training. Yet, it can have a significant and lasting impact on our students’ learning and life success.
That gift is the deceptively simple and sometimes counterintuitive action of holding high expectations for our students. We may think that lowering expectations might help students as they struggle to regain their balance and momentum. However, holding high expectations may be even more important now than during more stable and disruption-free times. In fact, lowering expectations risks sending a message to learners that we do not have confidence in their ability to meet the challenges they face and succeed despite their current circumstances.
Most of us are familiar with the 1960’s experiment known as “Pygmalion in the Classroom” in which teachers were told that certain students demonstrated test results that showed they were about to make significant gains in IQ in the next several months. In fact, the students had been selected randomly with no attention to intellectual capacity. Several months later the students were retested. The students who had the teachers who were told they were ready to make unusual progress demonstrated learning progress that significantly outpaced a matched group of students who had not been labeled as ready to make unusual growth. The only difference between the two groups was the expectations of their teachers. Importantly, the “Pygmalion in the Classroom” experiment has been replicated multiple times with similar outcomes. Bottom line: Teacher expectations matter to student learning.
Now, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has released a new study that documents an even wider role that teacher expectations play in student success. The research focus expanded beyond test scores and grades to include other areas important to life success. The study found that when teachers hold high expectations the odds of their students completing college increased by seventeen percent. The odds of students having children before the age of 20 were reduced by three to six percentage points, and the odds of students receiving public assistance by age 26 were five percent lower than the general population.
To be clear, it is not enough for us to say we have high expectations. Our behavior and interactions with students must reinforce and amplify our words. When we believe in the potential of our students and hold high expectations, our work with them changes, often in subtle but important ways.
First, our language with students becomes couched in the inevitability of success. We talk with students about “when” they succeed, not “if” they succeed. When we communicate our belief in students through our language and behavior, it’s easier for students to believe in themselves and plan to be successful.
Second, when students begin to slack off and underperform, we intervene quickly. Instead of seeing the behavior as an aberration that needs attention, we view it as reflective of the student’s potential.
Third, when students struggle, we take extra time to explain the purposes, implications, and details of concepts and skills. Our focus moves to generating deeper understanding rather than focusing primarily on the steps and sequence of completing an assignment or finishing a task.
Fourth, when we believe in the potential of our students, we take advantage to present them with challenges at the leading edge of their learning and development. We nudge them to struggle and grow, reinforce that their learning is worth the effort required, and we display trust in them to succeed.
Fifth, when we engage students we see as having potential, we use ourselves and our experiences as examples. We share stories about our struggles and successes in overcoming challenges and present ourselves as models students can emulate. As a result, students are more likely to see themselves as having potential to becoming accomplished, successful adults.
Of course, the power of high expectations also applies to us as adults. When we are viewed as successful professionals, are given more detailed coaching, receive attention and support, are given growth-evoking challenges, and frequently hear that success lies ahead for us, it creates a positive effect on us and enhances our abilities.
In Your Corner, Teacher Learning
It Is Time to Reflect on the Value of Teachers
It can be easy to take for granted the value of elements in our lives that seem always to have been present. Running water, electricity, and heat are tangible examples. Despite the positive impact these systems have on our lives, we may criticize and complain when for some reason they do not work perfectly or fall short of our expectations. We can forget what life would be like without them.
Teachers fit into this category. Our society is so accustomed to having professional people ready to teach, guide, and support learning that their value often is given little thought. The pandemic was in many ways a wakeup call. Communities experienced a stark reminder of what life would be like without the constant support of educators. Initially, educators were hailed as heroes and saviors for leaning into a desperate situation and providing support under incredibly difficult conditions. However, now that conditions have returned to something approximating normal, there is a tendency to complain and criticize educators because learning conditions and support systems did not work as well as they might have had there been time and opportunity for adequate preparation and planning.
Consequently, this seems like a suitable time to step back and reflect on the enduring value educators offer in our lives and the lives of children and young people. Most of us can point to a teacher who had a positive and lasting impact on our lives. They may have given us confidence to persist in the face of a difficult challenge. They may have tapped an area of interest, passion, or talent that gave us a reason to learn. They may have given us a vision of who we could be that was beyond what we believed or imagined possible. Or they may have just encouraged, valued, and respected us in ways that lead us to adopt and practice these ideals in our lives.
Several years ago, a study at Stanford University attempted to quantify the value of good teachers in economic terms. Among their findings was that an excellent teacher can account for as much as a twenty percent increase in the lifetime earnings of their students. The impact could mean several hundred thousand dollars of additional income over the course of a career. The reasons for such an impact are not difficult to discern. Great teachers provide students with the skills and motivation to keep learning. They help students to lift their aspirations and give them confidence to stretch and to take on challenges that lead to life success. A student who never considered higher education, a skilled career, or starting their own business can be inspired by a teacher who sees potential and “lights a fire” of passion and possibility.
Teachers also provide important social modeling and lessons for their students. Students are in positions to observe how teachers manage conflicts in positive and productive ways. Students learn about boundaries and social expectations through their experiences in classes and interactions with teachers. Students learn self-regulation skills and habits through the routines, expectations, and structures teachers construct and manage. Teachers help students navigate conflicts and relationships with others who come from diverse backgrounds and cultures and who may hold different values and lived experiences. The list could go on, but the point is that teachers play a key role in teaching, modeling, and coaching key skills and behaviors that are crucial to the success of individuals and the functioning and survival of our society.
Further, teachers are key models for and imparters of the importance of values, courage, and commitment. Honesty, respect, fairness, responsibility, and compassion are universal values embraced worldwide. Society cannot succeed without them. Yet, many families lack the capacity to teach, model, and reinforce these values for their children. Fortunately, teachers build and reinforce these values in countless ways, from how students engage in learning, to managing their work and other responsibilities, to how they interact with other students. Students also see models of courage through investments teachers make in students who are reluctant to invest in themselves. They see the advocacy of teachers on behalf of students who have no one else to advocate for them. And students see the enduring commitment of teachers as the year unfolds and teachers continue to work, struggle, and persist even when others may choose to give up on students, and students may even give up on themselves.
Comparisons to utilities such as electricity, water, and heat may seem awkward. Yet, it is difficult to imagine the survival of our society without teachers to inspire, teach, coach, and nurture the most important values, skills, and relationships upon which we depend and treasure.
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Behavior, In Your Corner, Thinking Frames
Climate and Culture, In Your Corner, Teacher Learning
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Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.
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