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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, February 9, 2009
Student achivement: all in their minds?
There is an interesting opinion piece in today’s New York Times that argues that psychological suggestion can have a big impact on student achievement. For instance, just telling kids they are smart before they take a test can raise their scores enough to be measured. At the same time, saying or doing things that put students in a bad frame of mind will push scores down.
I’ve thought often about this question. Don’t we send subtle messages to our kids all the time about what we think of them that could easily be translated in their minds to suggest that perhaps we expect less of them? The first time this thought occurred to me was when I was covering schools in Springfield, Ohio, a decade ago, standing in a dreadful, crumbling inner-city school with among the city’s lowest test scores.
I looked around and wondered — would there be a measurable improvement in scores if this terrible school building was just replaced with a nice new school? Would that alone reinforce something positive to the kids about how the adults value them that might translate into even a small boost in confidence?
Since then Springfield, Dayton and many other communities have replaced dilapidated buildings with new ones, so we may indeed get to study that question here one day. At least some other studies out there do show positive effects from the opening of a new school building.
These issues also remind me of a fascinating study about the effect of racial bias on students who attended schools with very small minority populations compared to those with more diverse enrollments. The story I wrote about that research also harkens back to my days at the Springfield News Sun.
What do you think of these findings and how could they be applied in the classroom in a way that would boost achievement for more students?
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