Were you a victim of the failure syndrome?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m writing a report on the effects of what has become to be known as the failure syndrome. The failure syndrome is a large circle in which teachers sometimes think that no matter what they do, their students are doomed to fail. The students in turn learn helplessness by sensing the teacher’s low expectations for them, and therefore put out a very low amount of work and effort. This causes the students to achieve low scores on tests and achieve low grades in general. This then reinforces the teacher’s idea that her students are destined to fail.

The failure syndrome seems to be most prominent in inner-city schools and among African-American students. I believe that it effects every school to some degree.

Have you or someone you know ever been a victim of the failure syndrome?

2

A bunch of views, but no responses, so I’ll clarify a bit…

One common example of the failure syndroms would be an extremely bright student being placed in low level classes because he acts out. The teachers, parents, etc. classify the child as a trouble-maker going nowhere fast. Hearing nothing but how terrible he is, the child starts believing it. He may then turn to other students he feels fit his profile better. Often these kids are into drugs, gans, etc. These things create an atmosphere where the kids can feel comfortable and accepted. Other adults, however, don’t see this as a cry for help and love, but rather as a way of confirming their belief that the child is just a dumb kid.

3

Actually, I knew a few kids who were victimized by thsi sort of phenomena, though in their cases it was more institutional than psychological.

When I went to high school there were three “Streams” of classes; Basic, General, and Advanced. Despite what you might think from the names, “Advanced” meant “everyone,” and 80% of all students took “Advanced” classes, which were just the standard fare. “General” meant “Pretty slow kids, so we’ll get them ready for basic vocational training.” “Basic” was for children with mental deficiencies.

Once you were in one stream, you did not have the prerequisites to advance to the next. If you took Advanced Grade 9 English (ENG9A) you could then take Advanced Grade 10 English (ENG10A) But if you had General English in Grade 9 (ENG9G) you could take ENG10G, but not ENG10A.

LOTs of kids therefore got legitimately screwed by being improperly placed in General classes in Grade 9, a black hole from which there was no escape. A good example would have been my friend Martin, who was a smart guy but who through either bad luck or some other unrelated factor was slotted into the “General” stream (read: slow kids) in English in his first year of high school. Once that happened, bam! For him to get out of general-level English was to fight an epic war against obscure school policies and “guidance counsellors,” which is funny because “guidance counsellors” are usually the worst teachers on the staff, so the principal won’t give them an actual class to teach.

My best friend Scott had similar experiences, despite being a damned smart kid who tried his best; because he was an American and a few teachers at his school hated his family for it, he was improperly “Streamed” in Grade 9, never to escape. He ended up as a rich computer engineer. Go figger.

Anyway, this sort of phenomena was quite common in Ontario schools at the time; once they relegated you to General classes, you were dead meat. Of course, since your high school knew next to nothing about you when you showed up, bad streaming decisions happened all the time, especially to kids with behavioural problems or minorities. Finally, they got rid of streaming in Grade 9, which elicited howls of disapproval from a lot of people who frankly didn’t know what the hell they were talking about; the results of “De-streaming” have been very positive, as high schools now have a year to figure out where to place kids.

4

Have to disagree with you there, at least disagree in general. Certainly this happens sometimes, but…

“Acting out” problems are not to be sneezed at, in school as a child, or in the workplace as an adult. But having said that, the real issue is simply one of available TIME the teacher has to deal with a disruptive child.

I would love to give these kids the individual attention they need, and look into whatever is troubling them. A lot of times I think I could help them work through it. But there are 20 or so other kids who also need my attention.

So I believe it’s unfair to assume that teachers’ labeling of these kids leads to the self-fufilling prophecy outlined in the OP.

I think most good teachers like all of their kids and want to help them in any way we can - even the “difficult” ones. But we only have so many hours in the day.

5

Despite my reluctance to acknowledge every phenomenon as a “syndrome”, I must respond that a lot of the doomed-to-fail mentality originates in parents rather than schools.

I am lucky; I had great parents who just pulled my string and let me go, like one of those wind-up bathtub froggies.

However I was very close with someone whose parents were always underestimating his abilities and discouraging him from trying new things.

I spent a lot of time with this person, and found that he in turn reflexively tried to discourage me from being courageous.
His future kids will probably be unsure of themselves. And the ripples expand. . . . .

-Mothra