Yes They Can

by Courtney Belolan
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Do you remember hearing, perhaps back in your teacher prep program, about the study where a teacher was given a group of Special Ed students but was told that they were Gifted and Talented students, and then the learners performed at the same level as the Gifted and Talented learners would? Well, it is a thing. And it is real.

The Pygmalion Effect, also called the Expectency Effect or the Rosenthall Effect, is when one's expectations about another's performance or ability impacts their actual performance. Here are two videos about it.

I hear the words "they can't" more often in my daily work with schools and teachers than you would think. We need to stop thinking that. Here are some ways to change the thought "they can't" into messages that convey high expectations for all learners:

• They can't...... YET
• They can't.... DO IT WELL
• They CAN do it ISHLY
• They are WORKING on it
• They WILL get it

The minute we use they word "can't" they aren't going to. If there was one thing I would want to see implemented with 100% consistency across the district, it would be elimination of the words "they can't" from teachers' lexicon.