The document discusses the self-fulfilling prophecy and how teachers' expectations can influence student outcomes. It describes how (1) a teacher's prediction about a student can come true simply because the teacher treats the student according to that prediction, (2) a study found students randomly labeled as "spurters" performed better because teachers unconsciously conveyed higher expectations, and (3) streaming students by ability and having lower expectations for some groups can lead to underachievement as students live up to their teachers' lower expectations through a self-fulfilling prophecy.