An article in the NY Times features a letter to the editor in which the author, Niobe Way, states a very interesting principle. It is so simple yet I have found it to be so effective in my accomplishments in education. The simple truths are often the most effective and it may be that what she is saying is probably the only thing we need to continue improving education in this country: not more money, not more days, not more hours … on this one thing. After that, watch thinhngs change. The following in a quote from that letter. To read it in context, click on the image:
“The success of schools like the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Promise Academy is not because of the inculcation of “middle-class values” (when do middle-class kids ever learn to look at the person who is talking?). It is because of the teachers’ and principal’s high expectations of the students.
Robert Rosenthal’s classic experiment in the 1960s showed that when teachers had high expectations for a group of randomly selected students in the classroom, those students excelled significantly over the school year regardless of how well the students did at the beginning of the school year.”
Is this the secret of education? What do you think?
