Teacher’s attitudes and expectations about student behavior can lead us to treat certain students differently. As much as teachers attempt to treat all students equally, I think that we cannot help but allow our own attitudes to influence the way we interact with our students on occasion. This can play out in both positive and negative ways.
While I cannot say that I have found myself treating students differently because of a stereotype (ie: Asian students are good at math), I have noticed that I sometimes adjust my lessons or call on certain students depending on the difficulty of the question. I have probably communicated to students that I am catering the easier questions to “low” students when I know they can answer and too often counting on “high” students to answer the more difficult questions. My thought about this is that I want the “low” students to feel successful in being able to answer questions, but by not making them answer the more difficult ones, I may be doing them a disservice by not challenging them enough. I hold lofty expectations for those higher achieving students, and require them to use deeper thinking to answer questions; while this is great for them, it is unfair to not expect the same level of thinking from lower achieving students.
I have also found myself, when there are the same five “high” students with their hands raised, saying to the class, “Ok everyone, Students A, B, C, D, and E have their hands up – but I already know that they know the answer, I want to know if the rest of you know!” This is my attempt to get others to participate that know the answers and are reluctant to share – however, I recognize that pointing out the high performance of those students may not be having the desired effect on the class. While my intent by saying this is to pull in the participation of other students, I am also pointing out to the class the discrepancy between those “high” performers and the rest of the class.
As much as I do not like to say it, I think that my attitude and expectations for certain students does come across during lessons on occasion. Of course, I try to limit this separation between “high” and “low” students as much as I possibly can. After writing this, I will certainly be more aware of pointing out those discrepancies and try to keep my expectations equal for all members of the class. Rather than lowering my expectations for lower achievers, I should find ways to modify assignments or offer extra help to those students. Teacher attitudes and expectations are significant and can have a greater impact on students’ behavior than I ever realized.
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