Here is Background on My Best Teaching Idea This Month
High school students whose teachers have higher expectations about their future success are
far more likely to graduate from college. All else equal, 10th grade students who had teachers
with higher expectations were more than three times more likely to graduate from college than
students who had teachers with lower expectations. In fact, teacher expectations are more
powerful predictors of postsecondary education status than the expectations of students and
parents.
• Teacher expectations were more predictive of college success than most major factors,
including student motivation and student effort. Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:
2002).
• Teachers almost ALWAYS say that high expectations are important for student achievement.
According to a recent METLife study, with a nationally representative sample of more than
1,000 K-12 teachers, 86% of these teachers say that there is a strong relationship between
having “high expectations for all students” and student learning. Sounds like a good start.
Seems like we are all in good shape, right?
Now, get ready to be shocked.
Yet, when it comes to actual expectations for individual students, only 36% of teachers say that
“all of their students” can achieve academic success. The same MetLife survey also showed that
only 13% of teachers “believe that all of their students are motivated to succeed academically.”
Oooops... maybe the teachers in that survey had not attended one of my summer courses
where I show you how to boost effort, attitude and motivation!
Teachers believed that African American students were 47% less likely to graduate from college
than their white peers and Hispanic students were 42% less likely to get a college degree than
their white peers (NCES, 2002).
It looks as if, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”
Solutions You Can Use
Teachers think that high expectations are important, but they are not actually referring to every
student in their own classrooms. This is important because teacher expectations, starting at
pre-school, was a robust predictor of the child’s high school GPA.
Solution #1: Recognize and admit you are likely biased
• Researchers from UNC (University of North Carolina) at Greensboro conducted a longitudinal
study of almost 1,000 elementary school students and reported that teachers had higher
expectations for the reading achievement of girls than they did of boys.
• Count how many times per week you give affirmations to those students who have
performed lower in the previous few years. For children who are used to thinking of themselves
as stupid (or not worth talking to, or deserving neglect or beatings) a strong, caring teacher can
provide an amazing insight that helps a student think, “I am worthwhile. I am worth others
spending time on me.”
• Ask if your schools communicate high expectations in the way they structure and organize
learning. Do you give all youth access to college core subjects? Do you push the arts, or save
them for those identified as ‘gifted’?
• Ask yourself if you infuse multicultural content throughout the curriculum. This honors the
students' home cultures, gives them the opportunity to study their own and other cultures, and
to develop cultural sensitivity. Studies show this actually fosters achievement, not inhibits it.
• Just when students need an ally to help them get to college, secondary teachers have lower
expectations for students of color and poverty. Secondary teachers predicted that high-poverty
students IN THEIR CLASSES were 53% less likely to earn a college diploma than their more
affluent peers. That’s a bias!
Solution #2: Learn the cues for implicit biases
• Do you begin with strengths and interests, then use those as starting points for learning? Or,
do you focus first on the deficits?
• Labels show low expectations. Targeted programs that label children 'at risk' may be doing
more harm than good. Labels such as this define a student as having a lower potential, based
on what the teacher predicts he or she might do, rather than on a high likelihood that he or she
has had lower performing / less experienced and/or biased teachers.
• Expectations play a role in motivating students and instilling within them a responsibility for
learning. Kohn (1993) argues that extrinsic rewards 'punish' youth. Rewards can be given from a
“deficit” mentality, assuming that underperforming students just need a kick in the butt. Brain
research tells us otherwise (Farah, et al, 2006).
BRAIN BASED PERSPECTIVE: Variety is essential since our brain can often become bored and
even desensitize to any overuse of a single learning strategy.
Solution #3: Engage and use these bias-busters
• Help students SET “Gaudy (very high) Goals” then, help them make a plan to reach their goals.
• Create a school wide culture with the ethos of high expectations and protective factors like
mentoring, life skills and strong adults in each student’s life.
• Start up a scholarship committee for every single student beginning in 9th grade. Show them
the process for arranging the advanced coursework in high school, taking the right classes,
getting tutoring (school can provide) and learning the hoops for getting a scholarship.
• Show students pictures, read web stories and present real-world role models that say to
them, “You can do this!”
• Successful teachers refuse to label their students ‘at risk' or ‘low students’. In fact, Hattie has
shown NOT labeling students is a top 20 contributor to student achievement.
• Offer the AVID program or similar college track programs. One poor, inner-city school
established a college core curriculum, and over 65 percent of its graduates went on to higher
education—up from 15 percent before the program began. A San Diego school with 100% free
and reduced lunch has 100% of its students on a college track curriculum and every year over
95% of its graduates go to college.
BRAIN BASED PERSPECTIVE: Brains can change. If the brain’s not changing, change the
instruction (strategy), the quality of circumstances (effort) and expectations (attitude).
Let’s review what we have so far. Change your expectations and it will change your actions and
results. Turning all students into believers in herself or himself is critical, and a highly effective
way to boost achievement. In fact, it may be one of the single best ways of all to improve your
own teaching. In closing, you CAN have the best school year of your professional life.
Implement ideas from this monthly newsletter and get ready for a miracle!
I hope September is a great month for you!
Your partner in learning,
Eric Jensen
CEO, Jensen Learning
Brain-Based Education