Importance Of Expectations Of A Teacher

The importance of teacher expectations in assisting the learning process of the students has long been appreciated. Teacher expectations, theorised as the Pygmalion Effect by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), are primarily linked to the students’ determination and their actual level of performance. This theory states that the higher the expectations of a teacher lead to a higher performance in the students. This theory also holds true that if the expectations of the teacher is low, the students will be more likely to perform poorly at school. Herewith, the faith of the teacher in his students' abilities may influence the latter's future endeavours. From this study, teacher expectations turned out to be "tremendously predictive" even more …show more content…
From this behaviour of the child, even if the teacher tries to help him in his studies by trying to motivate him and differentiating the instruction and yet does not show any interest in what he is being taught, lowers the expectations that the teacher has for him and in the same wake making the teacher lose interest in trying to make him learn. However, the notion of self-fulfilment states that a student’s academic performance can change according to what the teacher is expecting. It can be that a teacher expects his student whose academic performance is not good, will come to a change by the end of year and this really happens. Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) explained that this behaviour change is also possible because of the latter being aware of what is expected by him, therefore having an influence on him/her. Rosenthal made a study in a school, by giving a test to teachers to conduct in kindergarten. The results came out as to what the teacher expected from the students, with the brighter students coming up with good grades and the other students coming out with poorer …show more content…
But the way the school leaders tackle them might be different for different schools based on the culture they have. There are two types of ways to deal with problem, either you anticipate them (proactive) or react to them only when they happen (reactive). This is another factor that impacts on the teacher expectations - the way the school handles problems. Being a reactive school and having a reactive school culture means that we react to a problem when they happen instead of doing something to prevent them. On the other hand, in proactive schools, the situation is controlled by making things happen or by preparing for possible future problems. The teacher, on seeing how the school deals with problems will react in concordance to the school’s culture but this will affect his/her expectations as the way he/she would handle matters could be different from how the schools handle it. Indeed, school leaders are not expected to predict the future but they are expected to prepare for