Expectations and Education
EXPECTATIONS AND EDUCATION
Recently a Birchwood grad wrote me a letter about her experience in a high school mathematics course. As a freshman, she was taking an algebra2/trig course usually taken by high school juniors. At first she was intimidated and nervous, thinking to herself that everyone would be smarter than she. Her fears soon faded. Of the 15 problems the teacher assigned in class, she could do them all in her head. She said a junior level classmate asked her for help with “stuff I learned last year at Birchwood!” The Birchwood grad walked out of the class laughing and thinking, “I couldn’t be happier that I went to Birchwood. It was hard work but it sure paid off.”
I tell this story to make a point about academic expectations. Birchwood students are not smarter
than students in other schools. Raw statistics will tell us that 25% of the student population in Metropolitan Cleveland have IQ’s over 115 (students I call “bright”), and 10% have IQ’s over 130 (gifted in the traditional sense). That means that if there are 10,000 fifth grade students in Northeast Ohio, then twenty-five hundred are considered bright or gifted and one thousand of those have IQ’s over 130. That’s a lot of students. Why do Birchwood grads stand out among them? Why do they do so well comparatively in high school? Simple. We have expected more from them and they have responded to our expectations. They work hard and they achieve.
The fact is, that if you do not expect a child’s best work, you will not get it. There are no secrets here. Experience and research show that people perform to the expectations placed upon them. Expect little, you get little. Expect much, you will get much.
There is another side to this. If you do not expect a child’s best, and if you do not nurture the child to reach his or her best, you will not help that child develop a sense of fulfillment and self-worth. All children are driven to establish self-efficacy. Who am I? What am I? A healthy answer to these questions results from what a child accomplishes, and if children are not given meaningful academic expectations to achieve, they will not perceive of themselves as good students with high academic aspirations.
Quite honestly, I really push my students in mathematics. I expect much more from them than what most elementary and mathematics programs would expect. Certainly I take into consideration their aptitude and needs. Nevertheless, based upon their abilities, I expect and demand! Don’t get me wrong. That does not mean that I have to be harsh or mean. Students know I always support them, and will do anything to help them achieve. They perceive from my expectations that I care about them greatly. In addition, my classes are often filled with joking and laughter (my wife thinks far too much); but my expectations are uncompromising. On this, I do not relent. And guess what? My students excel and they enjoy (if not love) mathematics.
Nurturing talent and demanding performance are not mutually exclusive. They go together. If you do not demand, nurturing morphs into pampering and your child will whine about every little challenge placed in from of him or her. On the other hand, if you do not nurture, your demands will just become a pressure upon your child and create anxiety.
In next month’s issue we will discuss how to establish meaningfully high expectations.
By Charles Debelak
