Golem In The Classroom: Rosenthal And Jacobson
Golem in the Classroom
Summary (Rosenthal & Jacobson):
As demonstrated by The Oak School Experiment, an individual’s academic performance can be influenced by the expectations of others. Rosenthal and Jacobson found that younger children were more likely to develop intellectually when their teachers had high expectations of them. Consequently, the observation revealed that changing a teacher’s expectation of a student can have the negative or positive affect of altering said child’s rate of development. Rosenthal and Jacobson therefore theorized that expectations heavily influence how a person grows, learns, and behaves.
Rosenthal and Jacobsen were observing what is now referred to as the Pygmalion Effect, or the phenomenon in which performance level increases with expectation. The idea presumes that people are subject to self-fulfilling prophecies. If somebody envisions an expectation of the future, that person will unwittingly alter his or her behavior to make it so. For example, Rosenthal and Jacobson proposed that teachers at The Oak School might have been spending more time developing students that were given high expectations. In addition, high achieving students may have been interpreting their teacher’s high expectations as a sign to work harder. In both …show more content…
Because I am part Asian, I have always had to live with the “Asians are smart stereotype.” Though I am uncertain if this stereotype affected my cognitive development, it is possible that past teachers have used this racial perception to influence their expectation of me. For example, a math teacher could have expected more from me than other students because I am Asian. Although I cannot prove that my teachers have ever felt this way, I know for certain that I used to try and live up to the stereotype myself. When I was around nine or ten, I used to believe that getting poor grades meant I was a ‘bad’
Summary (Rosenthal & Jacobson):
As demonstrated by The Oak School Experiment, an individual’s academic performance can be influenced by the expectations of others. Rosenthal and Jacobson found that younger children were more likely to develop intellectually when their teachers had high expectations of them. Consequently, the observation revealed that changing a teacher’s expectation of a student can have the negative or positive affect of altering said child’s rate of development. Rosenthal and Jacobson therefore theorized that expectations heavily influence how a person grows, learns, and behaves.
Rosenthal and Jacobsen were observing what is now referred to as the Pygmalion Effect, or the phenomenon in which performance level increases with expectation. The idea presumes that people are subject to self-fulfilling prophecies. If somebody envisions an expectation of the future, that person will unwittingly alter his or her behavior to make it so. For example, Rosenthal and Jacobson proposed that teachers at The Oak School might have been spending more time developing students that were given high expectations. In addition, high achieving students may have been interpreting their teacher’s high expectations as a sign to work harder. In both …show more content…
Because I am part Asian, I have always had to live with the “Asians are smart stereotype.” Though I am uncertain if this stereotype affected my cognitive development, it is possible that past teachers have used this racial perception to influence their expectation of me. For example, a math teacher could have expected more from me than other students because I am Asian. Although I cannot prove that my teachers have ever felt this way, I know for certain that I used to try and live up to the stereotype myself. When I was around nine or ten, I used to believe that getting poor grades meant I was a ‘bad’