... on the messages we give our children (Rangi News October 2008)
... on the messages we give our children (Rangi News October 2008)
When George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion he probably never realised what he had created and what the repercussions of his creation would be. Apart from a musical and some memorable songs, the play, which of course was based on a famous Greek story by Ovid, gave its name to an identifiable occurrence called the Pygmalion effect, also known as the Rosenthal effect.
Rosenthal was a researcher who in the 1950s began looking at whether the unintended beliefs of researchers influenced outcomes. He extended this to education in “Pygmalion in the Classroom” in the sixties when he used randomly selected school children and told the teachers that tests showed these children’s intelligence and academic performance were due to blossom during the year. This is exactly what happened and much more so than in the control group. Rosenthal went on to research the ‘expectancy effect’ extensively and amassed much evidence of his own and others that teachers and students are active players in self-fulfilling prophecies.
He was not unchallenged and while there are arguments which question just how far expectations can actually change performance, and obviously there are limits (for example, it is well understood that our physicality does not enable unsupported flight, no matter our self belief). However, there is a substantial body of well documented research that validates the theory that people will live up to certain expectations and self belief. This is not, however, just about the classroom teacher, but also about the messages they get from others around them.
Teachers have a responsibility to encourage students to strive, to set goals, to believe in themselves. We have a saying here at Rangi Ruru ‘whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right’. The power of the teacher to influence cannot be underestimated, and many people have stories to tell of how a teacher has had a significant affect (or effect) on their lives – this can be positive or, unfortunately, also negative. It is part of Rangi Ruru’s vision that we will ‘release potential’, and we believe that every girl has potential.
Clearly there has to be a balance, as there is a fine line here. While acknowledging that everyone has potential, not everyone is equally able and I have seen too many young people struggling to achieve in areas that are not their strength because that’s the direction they or their parents have set their hearts on.
Because it is not just about the messages that teachers give. Equally – or even more powerful – developmentally, are the messages given, explicitly or implicitly, within families. As JoAnn Deak reminded us – we have short rubber bands and long rubber bands. The long rubber bands represent the areas that we naturally do well in and the short rubber bands, the areas in which we have to work harder. It’s easy to concentrate on the things we are good at, but Deak was adamant that rather than allowing students to avoid the short rubber band areas, or giving them‘permission’ to do poorly in them, they should be doing more.
One of the fascinating things about education is that everyone experiences it and everyone’s experience is unique. Yet how often adults revisit their own educational successes, problems and feelings on their children. While “I was never any good at mathematics either”,“I never liked reading”, “I found science a waste of time”, “I couldn’t see the point of all that homework” are used by adults to show sympathy or support for a child, actually they reinforce low self esteem and belief in that subject unless followed by words that clearly tell the child that they are different and can do these things.
Children take explicit and implicit messages on board from a very early age and these messages help form their outlook and indeed their perception about themselves. If from an early age children are hearing that maths is hard, or reading a waste of time, this will become part of their world view and will greatly affect their ability to achieve in either of those areas. Often these messages are not deliberate, they are throwaway lines from an adult based on their own experiences and possibly wanting to help a child not feel so bad about struggling with something. But cumulatively they do have an effect.
Maths is probably one of the most common examples where parents and friends are quick to say they were no good at it. Girls in particular have been shown to underrate themselves about their maths ability and in some schools the retention of girls into senior maths is a cause for concern. At Rangi Ruru our Maths teachers work hard on giving girls confidence, expectations and self belief.
As a consequence we have one of New Zealand’s highest retention rates of girls in maths, something of which I am very proud. One of our teachers told me recently of a time when she had a group of 11 year old girls who said they didn’t like maths and were not good at it. She told them that therefore they would not do interdisciplinary learning which in fact involved considerable maths, although they thought they weren’t doing maths. At the end of the year the mathematics scores across the group went up by an average of 20 percentile points.
Over the years I’ve heard parents even say openly that their child is no good at something. This is one way to ensure that is in fact the case. The Rosenthal research shows that people will perform to expectation. Inspirational examples which have become well known through movies include the stories of real life teachers LouAnn Johnson (with Michelle Pfeiffer) and Ron Clark (starring Matthew Perry). Popular films including To Sir with Love, Educating Rita, Pretty Woman and, of course, My Fair Lady have all been based on this concept, as idealistic teachers showed that, through a belief in their students, those students could exceed their own and everyone else’s expectations.
Whether it’s self talk or talk from someone else, if we believe we can do something, we are half way there. We do create our own reality according to a deep level of mindsets and beliefs. Those mindsets are developed over time and are complicated. Modern research is only just beginning to understand how the mind works, how opinions are formed, how that most complex of all things on earth, the human being, thinks, feels and understands. What we do know increasingly, however, is that nurture is important, that the environment in which a child grows up has a great impact on development, and that the capacity of human beings is far greater than we have probably ever thought.
When George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion he probably never realised what he had created and what the repercussions of his creation would be. Apart from a musical and some memorable songs, the play, which of course was based on a famous Greek story by Ovid, gave its name to an identifiable occurrence called the Pygmalion effect, also known as the Rosenthal effect.
Rosenthal was a researcher who in the 1950s began looking at whether the unintended beliefs of researchers influenced outcomes. He extended this to education in “Pygmalion in the Classroom” in the sixties when he used randomly selected school children and told the teachers that tests showed these children’s intelligence and academic performance were due to blossom during the year. This is exactly what happened and much more so than in the control group. Rosenthal went on to research the ‘expectancy effect’ extensively and amassed much evidence of his own and others that teachers and students are active players in self-fulfilling prophecies.
He was not unchallenged and while there are arguments which question just how far expectations can actually change performance, and obviously there are limits (for example, it is well understood that our physicality does not enable unsupported flight, no matter our self belief). However, there is a substantial body of well documented research that validates the theory that people will live up to certain expectations and self belief. This is not, however, just about the classroom teacher, but also about the messages they get from others around them.
Teachers have a responsibility to encourage students to strive, to set goals, to believe in themselves. We have a saying here at Rangi Ruru ‘whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right’. The power of the teacher to influence cannot be underestimated, and many people have stories to tell of how a teacher has had a significant affect (or effect) on their lives – this can be positive or, unfortunately, also negative. It is part of Rangi Ruru’s vision that we will ‘release potential’, and we believe that every girl has potential.
Clearly there has to be a balance, as there is a fine line here. While acknowledging that everyone has potential, not everyone is equally able and I have seen too many young people struggling to achieve in areas that are not their strength because that’s the direction they or their parents have set their hearts on.
Because it is not just about the messages that teachers give. Equally – or even more powerful – developmentally, are the messages given, explicitly or implicitly, within families. As JoAnn Deak reminded us – we have short rubber bands and long rubber bands. The long rubber bands represent the areas that we naturally do well in and the short rubber bands, the areas in which we have to work harder. It’s easy to concentrate on the things we are good at, but Deak was adamant that rather than allowing students to avoid the short rubber band areas, or giving them‘permission’ to do poorly in them, they should be doing more.
One of the fascinating things about education is that everyone experiences it and everyone’s experience is unique. Yet how often adults revisit their own educational successes, problems and feelings on their children. While “I was never any good at mathematics either”,“I never liked reading”, “I found science a waste of time”, “I couldn’t see the point of all that homework” are used by adults to show sympathy or support for a child, actually they reinforce low self esteem and belief in that subject unless followed by words that clearly tell the child that they are different and can do these things.
Children take explicit and implicit messages on board from a very early age and these messages help form their outlook and indeed their perception about themselves. If from an early age children are hearing that maths is hard, or reading a waste of time, this will become part of their world view and will greatly affect their ability to achieve in either of those areas. Often these messages are not deliberate, they are throwaway lines from an adult based on their own experiences and possibly wanting to help a child not feel so bad about struggling with something. But cumulatively they do have an effect.
Maths is probably one of the most common examples where parents and friends are quick to say they were no good at it. Girls in particular have been shown to underrate themselves about their maths ability and in some schools the retention of girls into senior maths is a cause for concern. At Rangi Ruru our Maths teachers work hard on giving girls confidence, expectations and self belief.
As a consequence we have one of New Zealand’s highest retention rates of girls in maths, something of which I am very proud. One of our teachers told me recently of a time when she had a group of 11 year old girls who said they didn’t like maths and were not good at it. She told them that therefore they would not do interdisciplinary learning which in fact involved considerable maths, although they thought they weren’t doing maths. At the end of the year the mathematics scores across the group went up by an average of 20 percentile points.
Over the years I’ve heard parents even say openly that their child is no good at something. This is one way to ensure that is in fact the case. The Rosenthal research shows that people will perform to expectation. Inspirational examples which have become well known through movies include the stories of real life teachers LouAnn Johnson (with Michelle Pfeiffer) and Ron Clark (starring Matthew Perry). Popular films including To Sir with Love, Educating Rita, Pretty Woman and, of course, My Fair Lady have all been based on this concept, as idealistic teachers showed that, through a belief in their students, those students could exceed their own and everyone else’s expectations.
Whether it’s self talk or talk from someone else, if we believe we can do something, we are half way there. We do create our own reality according to a deep level of mindsets and beliefs. Those mindsets are developed over time and are complicated. Modern research is only just beginning to understand how the mind works, how opinions are formed, how that most complex of all things on earth, the human being, thinks, feels and understands. What we do know increasingly, however, is that nurture is important, that the environment in which a child grows up has a great impact on development, and that the capacity of human beings is far greater than we have probably ever thought.
