TEN-PERCENTERS & THREE-PERCENTERS: NEW INSIGHT INTO THE PYGMALION EFFECT, AND HOW WE SEPARATE INTO CLASSES
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© February 6, 2011
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Today BB and I spent the day at Tampa Preparatory School, and with our granddaughter, Rachel, and grandson, Ryan, and then attended a junior varsity basketball game in which Ryan, played. It was GRANDPARENTS DAY.
This is the sixth of these outings we have attended. Over the years, I have developed a sense of the place and space and what it means in a wider context.
Tampa Prep cost between $18,000 - $20,000 per year with more than seventy-five percent of the students going on to Ivy League schools, or one tier below them, while nearly one hundred percent go on to college, with more than ninety percent of them graduating.
Walking towards the school today, I said to BB, do you notice anything unique about these young people. She said, “No, but I have a sense you’re going to tell me.”
“Well, first of all,” I said, “they look like they deserve to be here, that they belong, and secondly, I suspect 90 percent of them are not anymore gifted than the general population of students in the public school system. The difference is the 90 percent here expect to succeed whereas the 90 percent in the public school sector are much less certain or inclined.”
“So?” BB says, “What’s so unique about that?”
“I’ll tell you after we attend classes with them.”
“Why does everything have to be a mystery with you?” she says, “Why the suspense?”
“Because, my dear, then you’ll have empirical evidence to support my claim.”
“Okay,” she says, “I’ll go along with you on this.”
“Thank you.”
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GRANDPARENTS DAY – TAMPA PREPARATORY SCHOOL
TAMPA PREP does a remarkable job of welcoming Grandparents. There is a continental breakfast, then a welcoming ceremony by the head of school, followed by the Middle School Chorus, the School Orchestra, and the School Dancers performing for the Grandparents.
Then the Grandparents are taken to classes selected by their grandchildren. This gives the grandparents a chance to meet their teachers and interact with their grandchildren and teachers in a mock session of regular classroom activity, including student presentation.
This years BB and I went together whereas in the prior years we split up. We went to Ryan’s advanced physics class for juniors, and Rachel’s advanced English class for freshmen. I mention, “advanced,” because even in a private school they still pander to the outstanding.
The physics class was conceptual physics on satellites with the mathematics that underpin the physics being applied to theoretical and mathematical propositions regarding outer space, no rote learning here.
Grandparents were asked to talk about their careers, and how physics and mathematics influenced their career choices. BB took one look at me, and said, “This teacher doesn’t know what he’s let himself in for.”
Perhaps no surprise, some Grandparents have made significant societal contributions. There were a couple West Point graduates, a man who ran for governor, and a woman who has had been in the legal profession and philanthropic work. Grandparents who had expected to succeed apparently had.
In the English class, students read essays they had created regarding the origin of their given name, how they got it, what it means, and their comfort level with the name.
Significant, if the student was not comfortable with this idea, they enjoyed the flexibility of writing about a family member’s given name, or to invent a totally imaginary story. All of the stories were brief, catchy, and some outstanding. One notable essay was by a ninth grader who has an ancestor that crossed the Delaware that terrible winter in December 1776 with George Washington.
Grandparents were asked to share how they came by their given name, which was interesting as many of these Grandparents had origins in other countries in the not too distant past.
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The class meetings were then followed by a box lunch in the school gymnasium where the head of school gave insight into what Grandparents Day has always meant to him. The basketball game came in early evening, so we had to come back for it. Tampa Prep Junior Varsity lost to Berkley Preparatory School.
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THE PYGMALION EFFECT: TEN-PERCENTERS & THREE-PERCENTERS
“So, what is so unique about TAMPA PREP?” BB asked me on the way home.
“I’m not trying to make this a play on words, but the first thing that is obvious is that the school is not unique. This is our sixth year of attending these Grandparent Days, and the pattern seems pretty obvious by now, and that is, what is unique is that the students are not unique at all, whereas you expect them to be. Do you follow?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, let me put it another way. Any population of students is likely to fall within the parameters of a BELL CURVE. There are the high achievers, foot draggers at the two tails of the curve, and in the middle, the middle-of-roaders. Despite the efforts to defy this curve, chances are it will prevail in the public or private school with once exception.”
“Which is?”
“It goes back to my original comment when we came to the school today. I said, you look at these young people and you can see they have a sense of belonging. I meant they assume in this high expectation climate they, too, whatever their aptitude or drive, will succeed. It is called the PYGMALION EFFECT.”
“Pygmalion effect?”
“Yes, in 1965, a study was made of a normal bell curve population of students. The population was divided into two sections, one section was designated as ‘gifted students,’ and the population of students was designated as ‘average students.' The teachers didn’t know the two populations were practical identical in IQ distribution.”
“How did they know that?”
“They were all given IQ tests before the study, and IQ tests again after the completion of the study. Students designated as ‘gifted' scored ten points, on average, greater than the mean average of the group, whereas students designed as “average” scored ten points, on average, below the mean average of the group prior to the study.”
“And so are you saying TAMPA PREP is like this?”
“Not just TAMPA PREP but education in general. Permit me to explain. Uniqueness is a function of expectations. It is a sensible conclusion in our culture that since education costs so much that students who register significant SAT scores, manage the entrance examination successfully, or have a legacy of attendance at such elite schools have more than an even chance of becoming ten-percenters”
“Ten percenters?”
“Yes, the ten percent that get ninety percent of the great jobs and influential positions in American society, where they enjoy the benefit of an affluent existence.”
“I get it. You’re saying they get ninety percent of the good jobs but they are in reality a bell curve, in other words, not much different than those that don’t get such treatment.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“But why is this so?”
“It is a manifestation of the PYGMALION EFFECT. Looking at the faces of young people here, didn’t you notice they all have a kind of presence?”
“Yes?”
“Consciously or unconsciously, they see themselves as a cut above public school students because they are here. When they’re out in public, they wear tee shirts and sweaters with the Tampa Prep logo, or the logo of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Northwestern on them. They want the world to see they are ten-percenters, when in reality only 10 percent are. The other 90 percent, because they are in association with the ten-percenters, have the same expectations, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“And you’re saying they’re not?”
“I’m saying no such thing. I’m saying there are the ten-percenters here as there are ten-percenters in the public school. Only here everyone is treated as if they are ten percenters. This is consistent with the PYGMILION STUDY in which half the class was treated as gifted. Here everyone is treated as gifted. That is what I am saying. As consequence, ordinary students are treated as extraordinary and are likely to win admission to prestigious colleges and universities.”
“What is wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all.”
“So why the diatribe?”
“I don’t see it as a diatribe. I see it as explaining why educators bemoan the fact that 90 percent of Harvard students, for example, graduate as ‘A’ students with graduate honors. At this level, ten-percenters are reduced to three-percenters.”
“Come on now, you’re making this too difficult to understand, why three-percenters and no longer ten-percenters?”
“Please, be patient with me. Education is social, economic and political as well intellectual. There is a dumbing down that has been reported over the past hundred years from elementary through high school through college and graduate school with inflated grades, lower expectations, and increasing inability to think and process information significantly to make game changing contributions to society.
“As a consequence, in high school, only 10 percent are significantly ten-percenters, the rest or 90 percent are likely to fall into the bell curve I’ve already described. The most difficult thing is to get into Harvard or its equivalent. Once there, ten-percenters now become three-percenters, that is, important movers and shakers, or change masters of society, while 97 percent of these privileged students, who are all treated as three-percenters, fall into rest of the bell curve. Do you see my point?”
“Yes. And again I ask is that bad?”
“BB, it is not simply bad, it is horrific. We listen to, follow, believe and trust these privileged ninety-seven-percenters as if they are three-percenters because they have graduated from, say, Harvard, when in fact the three-percenters are now buried in the ninety-seven-percenters.”
“I think you exaggerate.”
“I hope so because something is wrong when credentials mean more than legitimate voices.”
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ADDENDUM:
When I was in high school more than a half century ago, ten percent of the students took four years of mathematics, along with physics, chemistry, and biology, four years of English, two years of foreign language, and four years of history and social science. They were the same faces in all those classes.
These students didn’t consider themselves ten-percenters, but they were treated and inculcated as such.
Every one of these students was expected to do well in life, and has, whereas the other 90 percent were not expected to be or treated as potential ten-percenters. They were not encouraged to take the more challenging courses, but to slide by as comfortably as possible.
Imagine if all these public school students had been treated, whatever their socio-economic status, as “gifted,” what a different world they would be handing off to their children and grandchildren.
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