Expect People to Change Like Jesus
Published: Mon, 12/10/12
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Expect People to Change Like JesusThere has been a good deal of research around the idea
that a teacher’s expectation of the student has a lot to do with the
student’s performance. Teachers who think their students are smart tend to
produce smart students. The converse is also true. Here is how one
researcher put it:
[1]
Simply put, 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, 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 research has a name: The Pygmalion Effect.
Pygmalion is named after the ancient Greek story by Ovid. In the story
Pygmalion carves a woman out of ivory and falls in love with her. He asks
that the gods bring her to life and eventually they do. His love for her
causes her to come to life. A teacher’s love for and belief in their
students causes them to come to life. Bruce Wilkinson puts it this way: “The
influence of our expectations is incredible, a gift from the Lord that
should be consciously utilized for the good of our students and family.”[2] The effect is not limited to the classroom:
Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found that employee performance in
the workplace, like students’ grades at school, is greatly influenced by
managers’ expectations of that performance.
An analysis of results from twenty-five years’ worth of experimental
research conducted at banks, schools, the Israel Defense Forces -- and even
summer camp -- shows unequivocal results: when a leader expects subordinates
to perform well, they do.
[3]
[2] Wilkinson, Bruce (2010). The Seven
Laws of the Learner: How to Teach Almost Anything to Practically
Anyone (p. 90). Multnomah Books. Kindle Edition.
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