I like people. I really do, but every once in a while they drive me insane. (Then I drive other people insane complaining, but that is a different page!)
The most recent thing is this retirement nonsense. When people hear I have decided to leave my school job, they conjure up their own retirement fantasies. Then they project them on me!
Now I know projections are more about the project-er than the project-ee but their expectations of what I would do in retirement gripe my cute, little ol’ lady tushie. Do they really know that little about me?!?!
Then I started thinking about expectations. Everyone has expectations of everyone else. Some of these people ask if I am going to do ‘fun’ hobbies, like gardening. (The last time I played in the dirt was the Dirty Girls charity mud run about 8 years ago!) Others expect me to sit in my favorite chair and watch daytime TV. None of the stuff they expect I will do is ‘me’.
The problem with expectations is this: they have an effect on the person at whom they are aimed! It has been proven scientifically a couple of dozen times. Many years ago Robert Rosenthal randomly picked elementary school children and told their teachers they were the children a test had predicted would flourish that school year. One guess who just blossomed that year. That was the power of expectations from others.
Then there is the power of our own expectations. Ever hear of the placebo effect? Yep, that is the power of our own expectations at work.
Now so far I have mentioned positive effects of expectations. Expectations also work the other way. In the winter 2018 Education Next they concluded racial bias negatively effects student outcomes.
Now what about expectations of the visually impaired? I suspect every one of you has dealt with the expectations of others. Some people – probably few and far between the truth be known – expect you to function as well as always. Others put severe limits on you. How could she possibly do anything? She is visually impaired!
Last year Kristen Smedley wrote for The Mighty about having to revise her expectations for her two, blind sons. She went from having dismal expectations to realizing the only way her sons were going to achieve anything at all was for her to believe in them and expect the best they could give. It payed off.
So, what is my purpose here? Well, other than to rant about how people expect some pretty strange things from me in the years after my retirement from school, I imagine my purpose is to warn you about the power of expectations. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t let other people sell you short. Low expectations lead to low achievement of goals. And in our class, low achievement of goals means a lack of independence.
Believe in yourself. Get others to believe in you. Harness the power of expectations.