Self-fulfilling prophesies are very dangerous things. They expect the worst, which inevitably make the worst come true; they make one believe something false and those false beliefs turn into actions. Self-fulfilling prophesies are very dangerous things.
Consider the famous Oak School experiment. Teachers were led to believe that a selective group of students had higher IQ's than other students, even though the students were selected at random. Over the course of the year, the students that were expected to be smarter showed more improvement than the students that were expected to be less smart.
"Simply put, when teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways (http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9902/pygm_1.htm).
Self-fulfilling prophesies are very dangerous things.
My dream is to create an inner-city school that is completely staffed with teachers that have high expectations in light of students' potential, and that refuse to let students believe anything otherwise. Isn't this a huge factor in why so many inner-city schools have low attendance and graduation rates? Expectations are set too low for both the students and teachers. My dream is to design an inner-city school that dreams big dreams and expects great things. Idealist? I think so.
Self-fulfilling prophesies are dangerous things. But the beautiful, and even radical thing about it is that God has some really powerful and brave things to say about us, that completely shatter those beliefs that reside in our hearts and cause us to act on utter lies.
If we believe in our hearts what God has to say about us, then these self-fulfilling prophesies got nothing on us.
