Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform

In this article Alix Spiegel talks about how a teacher believes a student will do in his or her class will have an impact on how they perform in the classroom. He states that if a teacher is led to think that certain students have a higher IQ then that teacher will help the student obtain a higher IQ. Teachers will give the students that they believe are going to succeed a longer amount of time to answer questions, give them more feedback, and show them their approval. They even smile at these children more. Research has shown that it really is not easy for teachers to control their expectations. In order to fully change this each teacher will have to be trained on a completely new way to behave. Spiegel wrote that if we are going to change the minds of the teachers we cannot simply change their mind. It is going to take more than that.