vfm6066@dsacg3.UUCP (John A. Ebersold) (12/30/88)
Does anyone out there have any insight into the following: A teacher is given a group of students to teach. The teacher has no prior knowledge of the students other than the fact that the teacher has been told they are bright, i.e, smart and well motivated or "dull", i.e., dim-witted and sloths. The teacher then treats the students accordingly. Have any studies been done where supposedly "dumb" students are given to a teacher for the first time. The teacher is told they are bright and treats them accordingly - expects alot, respects the students, etc. Or the converse. It is my opinion that, if teachers treat students with respect and expect (not demand) that they will do well, treat the kids intelligently, etc, that the kids will respond. Note: I think this will have its most profound effect in grade school. What do you all think? -- John A. Ebersold, Unify Corporation @ Defense System Automation Center - FM lll-tis\ Columbus, Ohio osu-cis!dsacg1!dsacg3!vfm6066 1-614-238-5923 AV 850-5923
shankar@src.honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) (12/31/88)
In article <1276@dsacg3.UUCP> vfm6066@dsacg3.UUCP (John A. Ebersold) writes: >A teacher is given a group of students to teach. The teacher has no prior >knowledge of the students other than the fact that the teacher has been told >they are bright, i.e, smart and well motivated or "dull", i.e., >dim-witted and sloths. > >The teacher then treats the students accordingly. I couldn't agree more with this philosophy of teaching. Performance in class is related more to hard work and interest in learning then to any inherent inclivity to genius. If they were to get rid of "weed-out" classes, and undergrads would be treated more like people rather then students every professor is stuck with one class a quarter/semester, I think that professors will be in for a suprise. Getting rid of weed out classes also has the added benefit of eliminating the meaningless grading criterion that I've typically seen in these classes (i.e. who can memorize the largest number of theorems and regurgitate them fastest).
m87_jan_c@tdb.uu.se (Jan Carlsson) (01/05/89)
In article <1276@dsacg3.UUCP>, vfm6066@dsacg3.UUCP (John A. Ebersold) writes: > >It is my opinion that, if teachers treat students with respect and expect (not >demand) that they will do well, treat the kids intelligently, etc, that the >kids will respond. Note: I think this will have its most profound effect in >grade school. > >What do you all think? I agree, here in Sweden teachers in nursery scholl is forbidden to pass on any information about the kids to the grade school. It is the parents who decide whether information should be given to the grade schooll teacher or not. If the teacher don't respect the students or if the teaching is bad in some other way then even the "brightest" will become "dumb" or "sloth-ful" after a while because he/she won't be able to profit by the education. With "dumb" and "sloth-ful" I mean regarding to the teachers opinion, maybe the student find it better to study at home insted of wasting time while visiting useless classes.