considerthesnail comments on This is how you deal with disrespectful students and gain their respect: "This is a story about setting expectations. Goddammit, listen to me: If you treat someone like a dog, they will act like a dog. If you tell someone, outright or implicitly, that you think they're yet another ne'er-do-well young black gang-banging fool, they will be that. I refused to be anything but positive with Dante. It would be easy to say that he rose to my expectations, but I don't believe that. He rose to his own expectations; I just helped him realize what they were. I knew he could be better. Deep down, he knew he could be better. But he needed someone, for once, to say, "I see you. I see you in there. Come out."
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