smile

They (you know, "They") once did this study where they randomly divided up students at a school and assigned them to different teachers. Some teachers were told that they had the worst students, while some were told they had the best of the lot. At the end of the year, the students in the "best" class had made the biggest gains in achievement, while the "worst" students lagged behind.

Every day, I tell my class that they are the best third grade in the school. I tell them how proud I am that they work together as a team. I tell them how smart they are.

At first, I was totally lying through my teeth. Or not lying, really, it's not a total falsehood, I'm sure some of them entered third grade at the top of the class.

On Monday, we had a not-so-good day, students were restless, the afternoon just draaaaagged on, you know what I mean. I kept getting sterner and sterner, which made me more annoyed, which made every subsequent called-out remark more grating, and I went home hating my class. On Tuesday, I put Monday away and greeted my class with a very big smile. I told them how happy I was to see them, that the best class in school had some important work to do. Immediately, I liked them again. And we had an awesome day. And today was even more awesome.

If you say it enough, and you hear it enough, you become the part.