Expectations

Expectations...can be lived up to, can be lived down to, can be set too low,  can be set too high...what ever way they really affect our students and children.  What we expect from our students and children affect who they are and will become.

Often times I talk about being grateful for being a teacher before being a parent.  I could see all the things people did well or poorly and then know what I would and would not do as a parent.  That would make me perfect right?  HA - not even close.  Nice thought though!

So, examples I have seen:

Expectations set too low

The student is smart, but has a lot of energy.  Parents tell you that there is nothing to do about this student, they are naughty and they are trouble and tell you this right in front of the child.

Kids are more observant than we give them credit for being.  When kids hear, over and over, that they are naughty or they are trouble, they believe it.  They live "down" to the expectations that have been expressed.  They know they are getting attention for their behaviors and they live right down to that expectation.

Kids want attention and they will take it any way they can get it.  If they feel the only way they will get attention is by acting out, then they will take that angry attention just so they get attention.

Kids want to please their parents/teachers.  When they think you expect something from them, they try to achieve what they perceive you expect.  We, as adults, need to set expectations we WANT them to achieve.  If we continuously acknowledge the bad behavior, they think that is what is expected and do it more.

Living Down to Expectations

That is what happens when we set our expectations too low.  Like I said, kids want to please, they want to do what they think you expect.

Some people think that if we set our expectations low, it will encourage success.  Actually, I believe it does exactly the opposite.

Since I teach music, I am going to use an example from directing a choir.  You want the kids to have success singing so you pick a song  that they can easily sing without even trying.  They could basically sight read it and do well.

Kids may appear to want things that they can do without any effort, but the truth is, if it's that easy, it bores them.  If we consistently set too low of expectations, they get so used to not even trying that when we try to raise the bar a little, they give up because they have to try.

Living down to expectations is a huge problem.  We need to believe in kids and not set our expectations to low.

Expectations Set too High

"I know they are capable of much more."  Have you said that about your students or your own children?  I know I have.  We see what they are doing, we are disappointed and our reaction is to set the expectation much higher because we "know" they are capable of much more.

Oops - the problem is, we usually do this in response to students or children doing poorly.  We are frustrated and we want them too realize that they can do better so we set a super high bar.

Well, just like kids shut down when an expectation is set too low and they are bored, kids shut down when an expectation is set too high.  They view it as totally unattainable and shut down because they "know" they can't do it.

We know that they can do it, but the way to prove that is NOT to set the goal that high right off the bat.

The parent expects their child to be perfect, never talk, never miss problems on a test, never do anything out of line.  This child snaps under pressure because... wait for it... they are human and they make mistakes.  What kid doesn't talk too much at times?  What kid doesn't forget the rule about no running in the hallway when they are super excited about something?  Kids are human.

Just yesterday my husband made a comment that was really quite accurate.  As adults, if we forget a form or we forget a deadline, we make arrangements to get it done.  But as teachers we don't give that opportunity to our students.  If they are late with an assignment, they are late.  We don't allow them to make arrangements with us, we just say 'NO' it was due and you missed it.

Now I realize that we need to instill the responsibility of deadlines, time management, etc in our students.  But what about those kids who genuinely forgot something, they have never done that before, this is a first.  We tend to take the attitude of "they'll learn not to do that again."  What?  They will never make a mistake again?  They are human for goodness sake.  We all make mistakes, we all forget something, we are all human.

What if we quit setting that darn bar so high?  What if we allow kids to make mistakes and not always reach that really, really high bar?

Living UP to Expectations

I am a firm believer that kids can and want to and will achieve a very high level if we set the expectations at an appropriately high level.

We need to set expectations a little above their current level.  As a parent or a teacher, we know what the students are able to achieve.  If we know they can do 20 addition problems in 1 minute, you set their goal at 22 problems.  They are going to have to work a little harder, but it is achievable.  If you keep it at 20, they don't have to push any harder.  If we set it at 25, they get overwhelmed, that's another 25%...yikes, too hard, I can never do that.  So they panic and they do worse than they did before.  But, you set it at 22...it's a little harder, just 2 more, you just have to speed up a little bit, not a lot.  This keeps them from being complacent and it forces them to give just a little more.

Every child does not need to have the same goal, do they?  Do we expect every child to be the quarterback of the football team?  Do we expect every child to be the top scorer in basketball?  Do we expect every child to be a Rhodes Scholar?  Absolutely not.  But then why do we expect every child to do a certain number of addition problems in so many minutes?  Some people take longer to process information.  What if instead of saying they have to do 100 problems in 7 minutes, we give them 5 minutes and record how many they CAN do in that time.  Then, individually set new goals for the next time they do it.  Set it at an achievable level for each individual student.  If they could only do 12 in that 5 minutes.  A realistic goal is probably 13.  If they can get 95 done in that 5 minutes, a realistic goal is to finish all 100.  And what if they finish before the 5 minutes is up?  Well you write down what their finish time was and their goal is then 5-10 seconds faster.

Every child deserves to have personal goals for their achievements, both academic and behavioral. Expecting every child to achieve at the same level at the same pace is unrealistic.

Education has moved to Standards and Benchmarks.  What a child WILL be able to do at each grade level.  It doesn't tell us how we have to get there, but it tells us where they need to be at the completion of each school year in each area.

But we are still trying to teach the same way we have always taught.  Everybody does the same chapter at the same time and if you fail, you fail, the class moves on.   But the idea behind the Common Core and standards is that there is a certain level that we need to get all children to.  It is our responsibility to help get the students to that level.  That means that we can't just say oh well when they fail and move on anyway.  We need to work on individualized goals and expectations.  When we do this, we help each kid achieve THEIR best.  The higher student can keep going and do more and achieve more.  The lower student works to raise their achievements at their pace.  They don't give up as easily because they are able to see an attainable goal rather than one that seems so hard they know they can't reach it so they don't even try.

I make it sound so easy, but I know that it is not that easy.  But I have seen it in action and seen it work.  My daughter had a teacher in 1st grade who had this philosophy in his classroom.  He was amazing with the kids.  He helped each child in his classroom achieve THEIR highest.  That was different for each child.  What did that do for his students?  The higher kids weren't held down waiting for others.  The middle kids actually achieved a little more because they were allowed to keep going.  The lower kids achieved a lot more than they would have if they were being expected to keep pace with the rest of the class or fail.  They maybe didn't get as far in the curriculum as they would have if they were forced to keep pace - but when you are forced to keep pace and then fail at it all, are you really achieving much?

What about behavior expectations?  Yes, we expect all kids to behave in a certain manner, but we need to realize that for some of our students/children, it is going to be a slower process to get them to the level we wish for in their behavior.

Even for those difficult students/children, we need to express expectations that are positive and achievable.  And we need to acknowledge them when they achieve an expectation.  Kids want and need recognition for doing well.  The more we positively recognize them for doing the positive, the sooner it becomes ingrained in them.  The more we recognize the negative behaviors, we are reinforcing that behavior - they crave attention, they'll take it anyway they can get it.  We need to make it so that we are recognizing them for the positive behaviors and ignoring the negative ones.

Extremely hard to do, I know.  I struggle with it with my more difficult students.  How do I ignore a problem behavior when it is distracting the entire class?  How do I reinforce positive behaviors?  I work daily trying different ways, but still find myself struggling at times and falling into old habits of acknowledging the problem behavior.

Today I tried the totally positive way of saying "Is that what being responsible looks like?  Are you showing me responsible?"  Wow - it worked.  So rather than expecting them to be bad, I expected them to know what responsible should look like because I had taught it to them already.  So my expectation was clear, it was attainable and guess what - they did it!

So when you set expectations:  Don't set them so low that it bores them, don't set them too high that you make it unattainable ...set it just above where they are, allow them to reach it and grow but feel good about themselves while they are doing it.

Where are your expectations?