Monthly Archives: July 2017

In part 1, I highlighted that teachers’ expectations can dramatically affect students’ achievement. This uniquely human phenomenon is the Pygmalion Effect. Here is another example. If a student in your class scores significantly better on a test, than you would have predicted, would you look first at alternative reasons before admitting you had pre-judged this student’s ability? Would you be tempted to re-mark the test or think about who was sitting close to that student during the test and compare answers for signs of cheating? As author W Wagner claims, “The ultimate function of a prophecy is not to tell the future, but to make it.” Every time a teacher sizes up or down a student they are influencing the…