self-fulfilling prophesy

Is Seeing Believing?

He’s just lazy.

She just wants attention.

He is sneaky.

She doesn’t care.

We’ve all heard these statements or ones like them. And they are true, aren’t they?

Well . . . maybe.

Apparently, human minds are wired to be able to speculate about what others are thinking or feeling. When she was a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT, Rebecca Saxe discovered there is a specific part of the brain that becomes active when we think about how others think and feel (TED Talk, 2015). Some scientists have hypothesized that the human brain evolved to be able to do this as a survival skill, an essential skill that enabled humans to determine if another was friend or foe. However, experiments demonstrate that we do not always get it right.

Let’s try our own experiment.

Take a look at this photo of something you might see in your classroom:

What’s going on with this student?

Did you say he’s bored?

Working with pre-service teachers (aka, college students), I found that the majority said this student was bored. Some said he was tired. When asked why they said that, the students would say they could tell by the way he was sitting, or the expression on his face.

But do we really know what is going on in this kid’s mind?

When I was a principal, there were teachers who were very frustrated with a student. “She’s lazy!” they said. “She’s always daydreaming!” “When I call on her, I never know if she is going to answer or just stare at me.” “Sometimes she looks at me like I’m not even there, like she’s boring holes in my with her eyes.” The teachers complained to me and to the parents.

These parents wondered if something else might be going on. They took their daughter to the doctor, to a psychologist, and other specialists. Eventually, they asked to set up a video camera in the classroom. The camera was rigged so that the students would not know if it was on or off, and the student was filmed over the course of a week.

The result was that this little girl was diagnosed with petit mal seizures. She wasn’t bored, or daydreaming, or staring holes in the teacher. Her lack of attention was not something she was doing on purpose. She had a serious medical issue — one that might not have been discovered if the parents had only relied on the opinion of the teachers.

So let’s look at this photo again. What is going on with this student?

Well, yes, he could be bored. He could be tired. He might have a headache, or have a neck injury, or just being hungry. He could be frustrated that he was not called on. He could be trying to keep up with the lesson even though he doesn’t feel well, or even though he doesn’t understand everything being said.

Would it make a difference in our beliefs about what this student is thinking if we were told he is a second language learner? If we were told he was moved from one foster home to another in the middle of the night? If we were told he had an IQ of 140?

The teachers who described the little girl who had the petit mal seizures thought they were accurately relaying information about her. They were not trying to be malicious or trying to deal with her unfairly. Sadly, they were labeling what they thought was going on rather than reporting exactly what they were seeing and hearing.

Back when I worked in juvenile corrections, I was trained to report only what was observable and measurable. This was a difficult thing to learn to do, but it was essential to how this particular institution dealt with the students/inmates. Why? Well, because we really do not know what is going on inside another person’s mind. We may pride ourselves on our ability to read body language or to spot “tells”, but we don’t always get it right.

On top of the chance at being inaccurate and unfair, when we use terms like “lazy”, “unmotivated”, “day-dreaming”, or “bored”, we are demonstrating that we have formed an opinion about the motives of the student, and that reveals the opinion we have formed about him or her.

In a previous post, I discussed how we form opinions of students that become self-fulfilling prophesies. We develop an opinion about how capable the student is and then we treat her a little bit differently based on those beliefs. We might call on her less if we think she is not as capable of answering a question. We smile less at those students we believe are less capable, and we talk to them differently. In short, we create a very different socio-emotional climate in the classroom for the students we believe are “good” or “better” than we do for those we believe are “less capable” or “naughty”.

However, if we are not always accurate about what we think is happening with a student, is that opinion fair?

Probably not.

The fact is we cannot see what is going on inside a student’s head. The expressions and body language for many feelings and emotions are quite similar.

Perception is reality.
If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it
because that’s the truth in people’s minds.
Steve Young

This phenomenon is something linguists have been exploring since the 1930s: The words we use and how we label things shapes our thinking about those things.

Adults are usually better at masking what they are thinking than children are. Adults have usually learned to pretend to pay attention, to be engaged, even when their brains are actually planning a grocery list, thinking that the speaker’s hairstyle is unflattering, or when thinking about how happy they will be so see their significant other later in the day. But children do not have that skill, and while many will learn it as they enter adolescence, not everyone does. Human brains do not reach full maturity until age 25 or so.

So what is the take-away? If we have become frustrated with THAT student, we might find ourselves labeling what THAT student is doing as being something negative when it really might not be. That negative opinion will have an effect on how we treat him or her, and how we treat THAT student effectives his or her behavior until s/he lives up or down to our opinion of him or her – if we believe s/he is a trouble-maker, s/he will become a trouble-maker even if s/he wasn’t beforehand.

Yes, humans are wired to make assumptions about others based on what we see, but we must remember, sometimes we get it wrong.

If we really want to turn THAT student around, we have to train ourselves to report on just what we see and hear, what is observable and measurable.

One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one’s perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them.
Tom Robbins

We will look at some other uses for using observable and measurable terms in another post.

Where Do Those Opinions Come From?

In the last post, we looked at how the self-fulfilling prophesy can affect teachers and students, and a way to start changing those expectations. But how do we get these ideas about kids in the first place? We will look at that and at another idea for working with THAT student.

Have you ever heard another teacher say something like, “Oh, well, you know she’s my BD kid,” or “What can you expect with parents like that?” or “Can you believe that kid was allowed to leave the house dressed like that?” All of those statements show that a teacher has formed a certain opinion about a student, and that s/he believes the other teachers share that opinion.

We form opinions about things all day long. Our opinions are based upon a set of rules our brains have set up to keep us safe, emotionally and physically. Those mental rules are based on our experiences, our up-bringing, and our values and beliefs. The brain evaluates whatever is in our environment based on those rules and sends messages that govern the way we think and the way we act. We are not always conscious of the rules our brain has set up for us, but we are influenced by those rules anyway. (If you want to read a short article on how we form opinions of others, look at this brief overview: https://psychologenie.com/how-do-we-form-impressions-about-others )

(When the brain’s rules add up to “threat” the body responds in a way that we label “stress”! Understanding how and why we form opinions can help us manage our stress levels.)

Most schools are based on middle class values and norms (Indiana University, 2016). Anything that falls outside of those values tends to be looked at as something that is not desirable and a threat to the environment. Add to the mix our experiences as brand new teachers who were not particularly adept at classroom management. Our experiences with students who act out become part of our belief system about who is and who is not capable in the classroom. Toss into the mix what other teachers have said about this or that kid and their families, what we read in a student’s file, and experiences with THAT student’s family, siblings, or friends. Remember, the brain’s rules are set up to keep us safe from threats, so anything that deviates from what it sees as normal is perceived as a threat to our school environment and “threat” translates as “stressor”.

So our opinions, usually unconscious, are based on our beliefs and experiences. But research shows that there are certain student characteristics that will most likely cause the teacher to mentally classify the student as being less capable than other students. Take a look at these characteristics:

Gender – believing that boys or girls are better at X; this could also be when a child of one gender does things that are usually associated with the other gender, like boys who cry easily or girls who get into fist fights
Socio-economic status – believing that those who live in poverty behave or act in certain ways and believing that those with more money than the norm behave in certain ways
Ethnicity – this can include things like being from a different religion than the majority of the students or adults in the school
Cultural background – culture is a complex topic, but the short version is this: if a student’s culture differs from the teacher’s or the majority of the students s/he can be viewed as less capable
Previous experience with siblings or relatives – believing that if a student’s older sibling behaved in a certain way, this student will, too.
Clothing – if a student wears dirty clothes, clothes that are dissimilar to other students, clothes that are too big or too small, clothes that would be more appropriate on an older or younger child, etc.
Hygiene – a student who appears dirty or who smells, and students who do things like pick their noses, wipe their noses on their hands or sleeves.
Being “too quiet” or “too loud”
Having a chronically messy desk or locker, or turning in work that is messy or crumpled
Acting immaturely
Parents who are different from the parents of other children
Labels – students who are labeled as needing extra help, who have been classified as needing special education or Title I help are often viewed as less capable

I have never met a teacher who would say s/he treats any student poorly. Every teacher would say she believes wholeheartedly that every student can learn and that s/he treats students equally. And I believe every teacher truly wants to treat each and every student with love and compassion. But our values and beliefs can get in the way. Remember, much of our opinions are formed unconsciously.

No matter how a teacher forms his beliefs that certain students are more capable than others, what happens as a result of those beliefs is that he treats the students differently in very subtle ways. He smiles more at those he thinks are more capable. He directs certain kinds of questions to the students he believes are more capable and a different kind of questions to those he believes are less capable. She calls on students to answer different kinds of questions based on her beliefs about the students. In short, the teacher creates a very different kind of social and emotional climate in the classroom for those she believes are more or less capable than others. And this happens in the exact same classroom at the exact same time.

Students are perceptive and they can tell if a teacher likes them, or if a teacher seems stressed out when interacting with them.

So if this is mostly unconscious, how do we change it? The first thing to do is to look for good things about each student. You were asked to do that in the last blog post. The next thing is this:

Look at the bulleted list above and think about whether or not THAT student fits into any of those categories. If s/he does, think about how you might be treating him/her differently than other students. If nothing particularly comes to mind, don’t panic. Remember, much of this is unconscious.

Next, resolve to get to know THAT student a little better. What does THAT student do when not in school? What makes THAT student laugh? What does THAT student know a lot about? What does THAT student want to be when s/he grows up? Now, you may not always like or approve of the answers to those questions, but that is not the point. The idea is to get to know THAT student a little bit better.

The final thing to do, to improve classroom management, is to try to set a friendly tone for THAT student and for all the students entering the classroom. Harry and Rosemary Wong recommend greeting every student at the door. Standing at the door and saying, “Good morning” or “How are you today?” or “Did you see that play in the last quarter?” to each student is a step towards creating a friendly, respectful classroom environment. If you want to take another step forward, try shaking hands with each student as s/he is about to enter. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. When we have had negative experiences with a student, it is much more difficult to look at him/her directly, to smile at him/her, let alone shake his/her hand. On the other hand, it is a bit more difficult to act negatively towards someone you’ve greeted in this way.

Remember, there are no magic bullets when trying to turn around THAT student. Celebrate your baby steps. You may even want to make a little, secret list of the things you’ve done to create a positive relationship with THAT student, and try to add something to that list every day.

Next time we will look at another idea you can start using right away with THAT student.

Post Script: Immediately after publishing this post, I stumbled over this article about a new study that shows amazing things that happen because teachers greet students at the door. You can read the article here: https://www.educationdive.com/news/new-study-suggests-that-greeting-students-with-a-positive-message-yields-be/532359/

Ashley Peterson-DeLuca, C. M. (2016, October 11). Top five qualities of effective teachers, according to students. Retrieved September 23, 2018, from Pearson Education: https://www.pearsoned.com/top-five-qualities-effective-teachers/

Indiana University. (2016, August). Teachers Favor Middle Class Behaviors by Students. Retrieved September 23, 2018, from Science Daily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160823125631.htm

Sezer, S. (May 2017). Novice Teachers’ Opinions on Students’ Disruptive Behaviours: A Case Study. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (EJER), 199-219.

Wong, H. and Wong, R. (2018). The First Days of School: How to be an effective teacher 5e. Harry K. Wong Publications.

Help for Working with THAT KID

Does this sound familiar?

You cringed just a little when you saw that name on your class lists. You’ve heard from last year’s teachers about THAT KID, and the news wasn’t good. You sigh, and think, “Okay, I will do my best and hope that over the summer THAT KID grew up a bit or learned to behave.”

The school year starts and you’ve prepared well. Things start out pretty well, but THAT KID has crossed the line a few times already. You give the consequences you’ve specified in your discipline plan, but THAT KID doesn’t seem to care and continues to push the limits. You’ve called home but the parents were hostile and defensive. You’ve sent THAT KID to the office, but that didn’t help. Your stress level increases. You start to wonder why THAT KID is never sick. You’ve done just about everything you can think of except deciding to move to France. The mere mention of that kid’s name makes you tense up.

What are you going to do?

That is what we are going to look at in this blog: Just what you can do to turn THAT KID around, or at least give you some peace and less stress.

THAT KID could be any kid, at any age, male or female, rich or poor, any race or ethnicity, any religion or creed, any level of intelligence. However, it is more likely that certain kids get a reputation for being difficult. We will look at that in the next post.

Let’s look at one of the reasons why THAT KID seems to push your buttons.

Have you ever considered buying a certain car (or other item)? You’ve given it some careful thought and you think you know what you want. Suddenly, you start seeing that particular kind of car almost everywhere – in the grocery parking lot, waiting for the light to change, going down the street past your house.

You’ve just experienced something called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Some people call it a frequency illusion. (You can read a quick article on this phenomenon at https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/baader-meinhof-phenomenon.htm or a short definition by the person who named this phenomenon, Arnold M. Zwicky, at https://web.stanford.edu/~zwicky/LSA07illude.abst.pdf ) What has happened is that your brain has been put on alert to notice a particular thing. Then when you see it, your thinking about that thing is confirmed –“Yep, I knew it! That car is the best because everyone seems to have one!”

When we translate this into the classroom, what happens is this: You’ve heard X about THAT KID and your brain is subconsciously alerted to notice the things you’ve heard about THAT KID. Now, your brain does the same thing with the kids that have a reputation for being angelic. For example, if you’ve heard that Ellie is helpful and kind to others, when you see her whispering to another student, your brain thinks, “Yes, there it is. Ellie is helping that other student.” That’s great, but the opposite is also true. When you see THAT KID whispering to another student, your brain associates that behavior with the negative things you’ve heard and you think, “Oh, THAT KID! I wonder what he’s plotting now?”

Every teacher consciously believes that s/he gives every student an equal chance to succeed, however the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon contributes to a self-fulfilling prophesy, something that happens without our conscious effort. It works like this: you develop a particular idea about a student; you see the student do something and attribute that behavior to what you’ve heard about the kid; that confirms what you’ve been told. That confirmation means we look for the behavior all the more, and that means we act a bit differently towards that kid and s/he lives up or down to the expectations our behavior has communicated to him/her. What’s worse, the whole process is subconscious.

Let’s be very, very clear – we do not do this consciously. This is unconscious, and not done on purpose! Few if any teachers consciously think: I can’t wait to treat THAT KID differently than I do the rest of the class.

This information is all well and good, but what can you do right now, today, to start to relieve your stress?

Try this: make a list of good things about THAT KID. This isn’t always easy, especially if THAT KID has been a thorn in your side for a while. However, by consciously thinking, “I want to notice good things about THAT KID,” you start to break the cycle of the self-fulfilling prophesy. For example, you might start to eavesdrop when THAT KID whispers to another and find out THAT KID is just asking to borrow a pencil, or you may hear THAT KID is asking if the other student wants to borrow something.

It’s that simple: start to really look for good things about that kid. Yes, it may be difficult to do, but there are rewards that are almost immediate. First, it is much more pleasurable to look for positive things than it is to only notice negative things. Second, you are less stressed when you think about positives because when you do not notice mostly negative things your body does not react as if you are in a threatening situation. Third, you begin to chip away at that self-fulfilling prophesy which is the start of a turn-around for THAT KID.

Give it a try!

Next time we will look at how kids get a negative reputation. You may be surprised at some of the ways.

by Kathryn Roe