by Jason A. Van Bemmel
Upper School Principal
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Seventeen years of working with teenagers in Christian schools has made me a firm believer in the Pygmalion Effect, also known as the Rosenthal Effect. What is the Pygmalion Effect? If you’ve seen the musical, My Fair Lady, then you know. The Pygmalion Effect states that people rise to the level of expectation placed upon them. Just as Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower girl, was able to be transformed into a sophisticated lady of high society because of the high expectations and hard work of Professor Henry Higgins, so ordinary human beings tend to rise or fall to the level of the expectations we have for them.
The Pygmalion Effect is also known as the Rosenthal Effect because of research published by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in 1968. Their research, done in schools, demonstrated that students can rise to levels of enhanced performance if their teachers expect them to be capable of such performance. So often, when it comes to our students and children, we do not get what we ask, demand or require of them, but rather what we truly expect from them.
For the past fifty years or more, our American society has been conducting a cruel and enslaving Rosenthal experiment on our teenagers. What is adolescence? What is a teenager? Such questions have been framed by our culture and have been answered with a very low set of expectations since the 1960s. Teens are lazy, self-absorbed, materialistic, irresponsible, shallow and foolish, right? Science has even contributed to our portrait of teens by proving that teens are incapable of exercising rational judgment since they lack a properly functioning prefrontal cortex.
What if the prefrontal cortex of American teens is so slow to develop because we don’t expect them to develop it? In most human societies prior to World War 2, teenagers were considered young adults and were expected to take on adult responsibilities and roles in society. Since the creation of “adolescence” by modern American society, the age limit continues to be pushed, lasting now until 24, 28 or 30 years old, depending on which authority you ask. Keeping adults in the prolonged “adolescence” benefits marketers, retailers and politicians and the ones most hurt by it are teens and their parents.
My perspective- based on the experience I have, the research I’ve done and on what I read in God’s Word- is clear and simple: High school students are not children; they are young adults. They may not be equipped and prepared for the full responsibilities of adult life, but they are more capable than most of us realize. They are certainly much more capable of rational thought and responsibility than our pop culture would ever like them to have.
As a leader of teens, I believe strongly, even passionately, in treating them like young adults, expecting them to be responsible, mature and capable of doing all that God calls them to do. Some people have accused me of being naïve, but I have seen teens rise to the level of expectations we have for them. They are young adults, made in God’s image, gifted in many ways, richly blessed with great opportunities, and capable of remarkable achievements, by the grace of God.
My prayer for our Upper School students is that they will be young men and women who love the Lord, whose minds are filled with His truth, whose hearts are filled with His love and whose lives are led by His Spirit to live for His glory and for nothing less. I know that God can and will do great things in them and through them. I am eager to see those things unfold this year!
Upper School Principal
Seventeen years of working with teenagers in Christian schools has made me a firm believer in the Pygmalion Effect, also known as the Rosenthal Effect. What is the Pygmalion Effect? If you’ve seen the musical, My Fair Lady, then you know. The Pygmalion Effect states that people rise to the level of expectation placed upon them. Just as Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower girl, was able to be transformed into a sophisticated lady of high society because of the high expectations and hard work of Professor Henry Higgins, so ordinary human beings tend to rise or fall to the level of the expectations we have for them.
The Pygmalion Effect is also known as the Rosenthal Effect because of research published by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in 1968. Their research, done in schools, demonstrated that students can rise to levels of enhanced performance if their teachers expect them to be capable of such performance. So often, when it comes to our students and children, we do not get what we ask, demand or require of them, but rather what we truly expect from them.
For the past fifty years or more, our American society has been conducting a cruel and enslaving Rosenthal experiment on our teenagers. What is adolescence? What is a teenager? Such questions have been framed by our culture and have been answered with a very low set of expectations since the 1960s. Teens are lazy, self-absorbed, materialistic, irresponsible, shallow and foolish, right? Science has even contributed to our portrait of teens by proving that teens are incapable of exercising rational judgment since they lack a properly functioning prefrontal cortex.
What if the prefrontal cortex of American teens is so slow to develop because we don’t expect them to develop it? In most human societies prior to World War 2, teenagers were considered young adults and were expected to take on adult responsibilities and roles in society. Since the creation of “adolescence” by modern American society, the age limit continues to be pushed, lasting now until 24, 28 or 30 years old, depending on which authority you ask. Keeping adults in the prolonged “adolescence” benefits marketers, retailers and politicians and the ones most hurt by it are teens and their parents.
My perspective- based on the experience I have, the research I’ve done and on what I read in God’s Word- is clear and simple: High school students are not children; they are young adults. They may not be equipped and prepared for the full responsibilities of adult life, but they are more capable than most of us realize. They are certainly much more capable of rational thought and responsibility than our pop culture would ever like them to have.
As a leader of teens, I believe strongly, even passionately, in treating them like young adults, expecting them to be responsible, mature and capable of doing all that God calls them to do. Some people have accused me of being naïve, but I have seen teens rise to the level of expectations we have for them. They are young adults, made in God’s image, gifted in many ways, richly blessed with great opportunities, and capable of remarkable achievements, by the grace of God.
My prayer for our Upper School students is that they will be young men and women who love the Lord, whose minds are filled with His truth, whose hearts are filled with His love and whose lives are led by His Spirit to live for His glory and for nothing less. I know that God can and will do great things in them and through them. I am eager to see those things unfold this year!