eir students. As this happens, teachers are unable to relate to their students. They are unable to speak a language that students understand. Furthermore, the differences in culture are seen as problems. The focus in turn is on the differences between educators and students instead of the similiarities. Teachers are not being taught to relate to students. In fact, they are being taught to treat students differently. What then happens is that students are seen to have different learning abilities because of their backgrounds, and expectations for their success are dropped substantially.
A teacher may have preconceived notions of a child's ability to learn and behave based on his own experience or lack of experience with people who share a common background (Cabello & Burstein, 1995, p. 285). Since people tend to believe that their cultural norms and beliefs are the right ones, getting people to change their beliefs is usually very difficult. Naturally, the student is not prepared to follow rules that she has never been taught; the student is seen as being wrong. In many cases, the student's bad behavior is ignored because of a false belief that it is normal for someone of her background. When things get too far out of hand, the student is blamed and then removed from the classroom. She no longer has the educational opportunity she needs to remove herself from a lower-income bracket. In many cases, the student may well find that behavior or beliefs that are acceptable at home may not be acceptable in the school (Cuban, Payne, Patton, Kauffman, Brown, & Payne, as cited in Cabello & Burstein, 1995, p. 286).
These misplaced beliefs are not necessarily confined to teachers of a different ethnic background than that of their students (Cabello & Burstein, 1995, pp. 288-89). For example, in a study that followed the effects of a teaching program on student teachers, an African American teacher clearly had misplaced ...