Teacher's Expectations And Students Learning

In Stand and Deliver, Jaime Escalante really pushed his students to want to do better. He fought for his students even when other teachers didn't think it was possible for them to succeed. I was upset when the lady who was in charge flat out said that his students were not capable of learning AP Calculus. He saw their potential and challenged them. It made me think how much a teachers expectations can impact student's learning.

In this article it talks about the process of teaching with high expectations. The four step process is:

Step 1: Identify students for whom you have low expectations.

Step 2: Identify similarities in students.

Step 3: Identify differential treatment of low-expectancy students.

Step 4: Treat low-expectancy and high-expectancy students the same.

I like that in the article it says that the teacher have to be honest with themselves and determine the low performing students, forming a negative expectation. The teacher also have to come to terms with biases they may have so that it does not interfere with educating and behaving a different way. I think that it is really important for the teacher to build a student up and encourage them to believe that they are capable of learning beyond what they think they can. 

In another article researchers found that teachers often displayed negative emotions (e.g., hostility, tenseness, anxiety, condescension), while they invested greater time and attention to relatively low-achieving students. Second, low-performing students can interpret teacher behavior that is meant to protect their feelings or to help them learn as evidence of their low competence, and this in turn lowers their own expectations and effort. Behavior reflecting teachers' best intentions, ironically, can do the most harm.

How do you think teachers can approach students with low expectations about themselves without further harming them?