Learning From the "Miss Saunders" Story

I recently read an article titled In Praise of Principals (in Hard Times) by Elena Aguilar. As I pondered on the thoughts and suggestions in this article I was reminded of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy theory.

Every educator is probably aware of the Pygmalion effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy as it relates to students. One of my favorite stories that is allegedly true is the following.

A school teacher somewhere in America (lets call her Miss Saunders) was given the task of supervising the worst class in the school - the one where other teachers dumped their worst students.One day Miss Saunders was talking with the principal in his office, about her students, when the principle had to answer a phone call. The principal turned away from his desk for a minute or two, and since the file on her class was lying open on the desk Miss Saunders leaned across and read the top sheet on the file.She was amazed to see that it was a list of the students, with their IQ scores. Amazed because all of the scores were well over a hundred. In fact a couple were over 150.Armed with the knowledge of how intelligent her students were Miss Saunders' attitude changed completely. Instead of thinking the students were stupid, ignorant or lazy Miss Saunders began to treat them as the "gifted" students she now knew them to be.And of course it had fantastic results. From being a class of losers it became one of the top three classes in the school as far as their test results, etc., was concerned. Moreover the students became far better behaved, more attentive, took better care of themselves, and so on.At the end of the year the principal congratulated Miss Saunders on doing such a brilliant job with such "unpromising" students."Unpromising?" said Miss Saunders. "But I sneaked a look at their IQ scores one time and they all rates as 'superior', 'gifted' or even, in two cases, 'genius'."The principal thought for a moment and then burst out laughing."Are you talking about the figures on the top sheet of the class file?" he asked.Miss Saunders nodded."Well I hate to disillusion you," said the principal, "but those aren't their IQ scores. They're their locker numbers!"

Although it is extremely important for teachers to treat students as if they were capable, it is just as important for principals to have the same kind of expectations for teachers and vice versa. After all, all humans whether they are children or adults, tend to behave as they are treated.