Attitudes in Correctional Education:
In general in the field of education it has been known for some time that the attitudes of teachers towards their students greatly influence learning outcomes. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University is the principal researcher in this area, and his findings regarding the power of teacher behavior and thinking toward students, regardless of their age, have stimulated questioning in educational circles. It is the purpose of this paper to summarize Rosenthal's findings, review the literature pertaining to teacher attitudes in correctional education, and pose some possible questions and direction for fruitful research in the area of effective teaching in penal institutions.
Rosenthal's central premise is that one person's expectation for another's behavior can become a self-fulfilling prophecy (1992, p. 174). He does not say that this is always the case but that there is a tendency in that direction. In his Oak School experiment, each of eighteen teachers of grades one through six was given the names of children who, in the year ahead, was expected to show a dramatic intellectual growth spurt (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1992, p. 175). These special children were actually randomly chosen, but 47 percent of them gained twenty or more total IQ points.
Rosenthal speculates that unintentional communications between student and teacher can be incredibly complex (1992, p. 180), creating a dynamic that encourages or blocks student learning. Specific teacher behaviors noted by Rosenthal include watching the identified children more closely, more rapid reinforcement of correct responses, facial expressions, postures, and touch (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1992, p. 180). Such a constellation of teacher-student relations helps the student learn by changing his self concept, his expectations of himself, his motivation, and learning skill.
Although research in the area of teacher attitude in relation to ...