It seems that one year there was a class of students who were so unruly that they burned out two different teachers. One teacher took early retirement and the other decided to get out of teaching altogether. This class was so bad that substitute teachers began to refuse to take it.So the principal called a teacher who had applied for a job but hadn’t made the cut that year. He asked her if she would be willing to come in and finish out the year in return for the promise of a full-time position the next year. She eagerly accepted.

   The principal decided not to warn the teacher about the class, afraid that she would be scared off if she heard what she was up against.After the new teacher had been on the job for a month, the principal sat in on a class to see how things were going. To his amazement, the students were well-behaved and enthusiastic. After the students had filed out of the classroom, the principal stayed behind to congratulate the teacher on a job well done. She thanked him but insisted that he deserved thanks for giving her such a special class, such a great class, for her first assignment. The principal hemmed and hawed and told her that he really didn’t deserve any thanks.

   She laughed and told him,“You see, I discovered your little secret on my first day here. I looked in the desk drawer and found the list of the students’ IQ scores. I knew I had a challenging group of kids here, so bright and rambunctious that I would really have to work to make school interesting for them because they are so inteliigent.” She slid the drawer open and the principal saw the list with the students’ names and the numbers 136,145,127,128, and so on written next to the names.

   He exclaimed,“Those aren’t their IQ scores——those are their locker numbers！” Too late. The teacher had already expected the students to be bright and gifted——and they had responded positively to her positive view and her positive handling of them.

   (摘自2009年6月《新东方英语中学版》)

   记得有一年，学校里有一个班级的学生不守规矩，很难管束，耗尽了两位不同的老师的教书热情。其中一位提前退了休，另一个位则干脆告别了教师的岗位。这个班级声名狼藉，以至于没有一个代课老师愿意接手。不得已，校长给一位那年来应聘过但却没有被录用的老师打了个电话，询问她是否愿意来这所学校完成本学年余下的教学任务，并许诺来年可以给她提供一个全职岗位作为回报。她欣然应允。

   校长决定先不告知她即将面对的班级的情况，以免她知道后会被吓跑。新老师上任一个月后，校长亲临课堂旁听，想看看这个班级的状况如何。令他惊讶的是学生们都积极听讲，表现良好。下课后，学生们鱼贯而出，校长留了下来，祝贺这位新老师出色的表现。她表示感谢并一再强调成绩应归功于校长，因为是他把这样一个出类拔萃，这样一个优秀的班级交给她，作为她教学生涯的开端。校长吞吞吐吐地告诉这位老师真的无须谢他。

   她笑着说道：“别客气了。我来这儿第一天就发现了您的一个小秘密。我在讲桌抽屉里找到了一份学生智商测试得分单。我很清楚这是一群极富挑战性的学生，他们聪明好动，调皮捣蛋。因此我必须努力使课堂变得趣味盎然，满足他们的求知欲。”她拉开抽屉，校长看到了那张单子。上面写有各个学生的姓名以及紧随其后的数字136、145、127、128等等。

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