Want an Exceptional Student? Here's the One Thing You Can Do

In their book, Pygmalion in the Classroom, psychiatrists Robert Rosenthal and school principal Lenora Jacobson describe a study they did involving children from kindergarten through fifth grade. They told the children’s teachers which students in their classrooms had “exceptional learning abilities.”

But the teachers did not know that the researchers had chosen these “exceptional” students at random. When the students were tested at the end of the school year, the students who the teachers had been led to believe had exceptional learning abilities had made much greater academic progress than their peers.

In essence, the teachers had been programmed to expect more from certain students, and these students thus expected more of themselves and delivered.

The message here for teachers is that you get what you expect.

Expect the best from your students and you’ll get the best. And, above all praise the efforts. The results will come. This is great advice for parents also.

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