The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and its Influence on my Unique Perspective
November 29, 2004
The presentation today on self-fulfilling prophecy was quite interesting. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this concept, the self-fulfilling prophecy is a theory that states a teacher makes judgments about students based on gender, race, given name, surname, dialect, appearance, interests, or even special needs. Many times, this judgment is unintentional however, the teacher will then form expectations of each student based on these judgments, and treat them accordingly.
As a student with a disability who was fully integrated into the regular classroom, I know I fell victim to this theory many times. The majority of my teachers had very low expectations of me, and as a result, report card periods were very stressful for me. There were many times I didn’t know how to interpret my letter grades.
If I got a C, I often found myself saying the teacher was prejudice, and wasn’t paying any attention to the quality of my work. They only rewarded me with the grade they felt I deserved based on their expectations. In other words, low expectations in my thought processes equaled a C. Therefore, when my parents yelled at me for getting a bad grade, I never felt like it was my own fault.
At the other side of the spectrum, when I got an A, I often found myself thinking, “Is this a pity mark?” or “Did I only receive this A only because I exceeded their very low expectations of me? Meaning the work I produced may not have actually been a true reflection of that caliber, but it was impressive by their previously held standards?” Basically, I never once felt like I deserved the grade I received because I was consciously aware of this stupid self-fulfilling prophecy-at least that was true until high school. By then, I knew high marks equaled scholarships, and they wouldn’t be given out A’s to just anyone.
Because I am so hyper sensitive to this self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon, I try really hard not to fall victim to it. After all, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. However, this is easier said than done. When Angela handed out a sheet at the beginning her presentation with a bunch of brief character sketches that she wanted us to form an opinion on. Since I’m a firm believer of not judging a book by it’s cover, I basically refused to complete the assignment. Any comments I did write down were pretty general. For example, next to the person who was smoking outside I wrote this person has a very bad habit, however, this should have no bearing on who they are as a person or what they can accomplish.
Even though many people see it as unfortunate that I was a victim of the self-fulfilling prophecy, given what I wrote down on that sheet of paper, I consider it to be a blessing in disguise. After all, it gave me a whole different perspective on the world around me that I know will serve me well in the teaching profession.
The presentation today on self-fulfilling prophecy was quite interesting. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this concept, the self-fulfilling prophecy is a theory that states a teacher makes judgments about students based on gender, race, given name, surname, dialect, appearance, interests, or even special needs. Many times, this judgment is unintentional however, the teacher will then form expectations of each student based on these judgments, and treat them accordingly.
As a student with a disability who was fully integrated into the regular classroom, I know I fell victim to this theory many times. The majority of my teachers had very low expectations of me, and as a result, report card periods were very stressful for me. There were many times I didn’t know how to interpret my letter grades.
If I got a C, I often found myself saying the teacher was prejudice, and wasn’t paying any attention to the quality of my work. They only rewarded me with the grade they felt I deserved based on their expectations. In other words, low expectations in my thought processes equaled a C. Therefore, when my parents yelled at me for getting a bad grade, I never felt like it was my own fault.
At the other side of the spectrum, when I got an A, I often found myself thinking, “Is this a pity mark?” or “Did I only receive this A only because I exceeded their very low expectations of me? Meaning the work I produced may not have actually been a true reflection of that caliber, but it was impressive by their previously held standards?” Basically, I never once felt like I deserved the grade I received because I was consciously aware of this stupid self-fulfilling prophecy-at least that was true until high school. By then, I knew high marks equaled scholarships, and they wouldn’t be given out A’s to just anyone.
Because I am so hyper sensitive to this self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon, I try really hard not to fall victim to it. After all, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. However, this is easier said than done. When Angela handed out a sheet at the beginning her presentation with a bunch of brief character sketches that she wanted us to form an opinion on. Since I’m a firm believer of not judging a book by it’s cover, I basically refused to complete the assignment. Any comments I did write down were pretty general. For example, next to the person who was smoking outside I wrote this person has a very bad habit, however, this should have no bearing on who they are as a person or what they can accomplish.
Even though many people see it as unfortunate that I was a victim of the self-fulfilling prophecy, given what I wrote down on that sheet of paper, I consider it to be a blessing in disguise. After all, it gave me a whole different perspective on the world around me that I know will serve me well in the teaching profession.
posted by Chantelle @ 7:26 PM
2 Comments:
At December 19, 2004 9:47 PM,
Robert said…
Interesting perspective!
When interviewing students with disabilities in post secondary education, we found the biggest frustration was that instructors who had modified assessments to accommodate a disability would assume that if a student did really well, it was because the modified assessment was somehow easier -- and they would arbitrarily lower the grade to 'compensate'. In fact the modifications often made the assessment significantly harder, especially since most instructors were unfamiliar with how to do these alternatives correctly (e.g., had no idea how oral examination differes from a written one and that oral is a lot more demanding!) but would always start from the assumption that disabled student could NOT get the best mark in the class so even when confronted with evidence that the student knew more than anyone else in the class, dismissed it as an artifact of the modification.... Drives me (and other assessment specialists) crazy.
At December 19, 2004 10:01 PM,
Robert said…
Interesting perspective!
When interviewing students with disabilities in post secondary education, we found the biggest frustration was that instructors who had modified assessments to accommodate a disability would assume that if a student did really well, it was because the modified assessment was somehow easier -- and they would arbitrarily lower the grade to 'compensate'. In fact the modifications often made the assessment significantly harder, especially since most instructors were unfamiliar with how to do these alternatives correctly (e.g., had no idea how oral examination differes from a written one and that oral is a lot more demanding!) but would always start from the assumption that disabled student could NOT get the best mark in the class so even when confronted with evidence that the student knew more than anyone else in the class, dismissed it as an artifact of the modification.... Drives me (and other assessment specialists) crazy.
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