As teachers, we are told......

Sure! I believe it. When I was studying psychology I read about an interesting experiment that was done years ago. They told a group of teachers that certain students had tested at higher IQ levels and teachers favored those students and offered extra school help and tutoring to the "special" students until those students started making better grades. Turns out that almost all the students had tested at or around the same IQ and intelligence levels. None were advanced. But the teachers, believing they were expected them to succeed and equipped them with the tools to succeed. So, I do believe that belief and expectations play a great role in education.

yes and no really. they will give back what you put in to it. say you expect them all to make good grades but yet you are not teaching you are just telling them read it and here is the assignment you cant expect all of them to get the good grades. you have to put in what you want back out of them. i expect my kids to do alot of things and they do about half of it. but if i teach them and expect it then i seem to get a great return on it.

I think it is fantastic in theory but doesn't always work in practise! My personal preference would be to expect more as sometimes when you stop looking for a certain level of work the kids stop trying! xxx

I think it's true only if you also offer support and encouragement. You can't just throw the bar up there and say "okay, now reach it". My daughter's teacher has done that all year, and the whole class has been foundering around and fumbling along because she doesn't help them at all. If they have questions, she says 'not now', but there never seems to be a time when she's willing to help them. She gives the lesson once, and then when all the kids fail the next test because they don't understand, she blames them. She had been teaching 8th grade and they moved her to 4th. I think it was a bad move all the way around. But if the teacher offers the proper instruction and is willing to answer the students' questions and help them, then yes I think it's possible.