Students respond to their own expectations of what they can and cannot learn. If they believe they are able to learn something, whether solving equations or riding a bicycle, they usually make headway. But when they lack confidence, learning eludes them.

Students grow in self-confidence as they experience success in learning, just as they lose confidence in the face of repeated failure. Thus, teachers need to provide students with challenging but attainable learning tasks and help them succeed.

What is more, students are quick to pick up the expectations of success or failure that others have for them. The positive and negative expectations shown by parents, counselors, principals, peers, and more generally by the news media affect students’ expectations and hence their learning behavior.

When, for instance, a teacher signals his or her lack of confidence in the ability of students to understand certain subjects, the students may lose confidence in their ability and may perform more poorly than they otherwise might.

If this apparent failure reinforces the teacher’s original judgment, a disheartening spiral of decreasing confidence and performance can result.

By: Olive S. Gloria – Teacher III Orani National High School Tugatog, Orani, Bataan