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Our educational system is too rooted in self-esteem based teaching28% Voted for by SPAMkid, looking4realtruth.
In a 1996 survey done by USA today, 62% of Americans surveyed identified the deterioration of public schools as the country’s most pressing problem (Shokraii 5). Nine years later the situation is just as dire, but largely ignored by many people due to current events in the Middle East. Still the problem exists, our schools are failing, and students who are being taught in the US are not ready for the world around them, a world which is getting smaller by the day. So why do our schools continue to flounder? Why, despite high funding and higher scrutiny in recent years are our children still maintaining a high level of mental mediocrity? The answer lies in where our educational system is rooted: self esteem.
In a 1998 article in USA Today written by Nina H. Shokraii, an Education Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation, a study is mentioned which highlights the difference between US and Asian students. The study, done by psychologists Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler, tested the academic skills of elementary school students in Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States, and asked how they felt about their academic skills. As expected, the Asian students fared better academically, but the Americans exhibited a significantly higher self-evaluation of their academic prowess. So the Americans combined a lousy performance with a high sense of self-esteem, (Shokraii 14). Why does this happen? Why are our students proud of their academically pedestrian performance? It is due to the fact that today’s teachers are convinced that when a child is told that he/she is wrong, he/she will feel bad, and feeling bad leads to poor academic performance. So instead teachers today shower their pupils with praise, adhering to the mantra of ‘if the feel good, they’ll do good.’ This is unfounded and flawed logic, in an article about self esteem focused teaching in 2000, a survey of over 10,000 studies about self esteem and education was cited, and not one of these surveys showed any link between self esteem and academic success (Colvin 11). This truly shows the flaws in self esteem focused education: there are no genuine benefits to be gained.So what is self esteem? According to Wikipedia.org self esteem is, “a person's subjective appraisal of himself or herself as intrinsically positive or negative to some degree,” (Self-esteem 1). In layman’s terms, self esteem is how someone thinks of him/herself, be that good or bad. Psychologists have typically divided self esteem into two categories: earned self esteem and global self esteem. (Shokraii, 9)Earned self esteem comes from satisfaction gained from one’s accomplishments (winning a contest for example) (Shokraii 10). Global self esteem comes from a general approval of oneself; this esteem is not rooted in any innate ability or accomplishment, but rather based on an individual’s overall satisfaction with him/herself (Shokraii 11). This empty self esteem is what has pervaded today’s school system; at best this kind of self esteem can be harmful.In 1998, a self esteem study was done at Iowa State University, the study found that those who had the highest opinions of themselves were the most likely to react violently to those who they believed had wronged them (Colvin, 13). Why is this? It is likely because the test subjects have been exposed all their lives to global self esteem. When one is given praise for nothing, they will expect to get praise for everything. This is not how the real world works, good work is rewarded and poor work is critiqued and often disregarded. The public school system once was designed to give our students the tools to function in the real world, providing a protected environment in which pupils can grow mentally and gain knowledge about the adult world.That is apparently no longer the case, as evidenced by the following story:“Judith Casey, principal of Antelope Trails Elementary in Colorado Springs, Colo., is sensitive to the public's doubt about over-emphasizing self-esteem. ‘I knew it would be a red flag for some people,’ she says. But that hasn't prevented her from focusing on the needs of individual students. "Every single practice we have needs to be evaluated in terms of whether it is really… fulfilling a need that a child has," she says. Unlike many schools, Antelope Trails does not give awards to individual students. The reason, Casey says, is that it prevents all students from being recognized. If one student is honored as the "student of the month," that tells others they haven't measured up. So instead, she will give an entire class what she calls "a school pride thank you" for a behavior she wants to reinforce. (Colvin, 35-37)This is the real world? Last time I checked, employee of the month awards, bonuses, and other incentives are still given out. When one employee is singled out and rewarded, isn’t this supposed to encourage the rest of the workforce to work harder so that they too may be rewarded? Shouldn’t this apply to a child on a smaller scale? I remember when I was younger, my mom would give my sister and I candy each after a day’s shopping trip if we behaved ourselves in the car and in the store. If one of us made a scene and the other didn’t, only one of us got the candy. This encouraged us, at an age younger then elementary school age, to behave ourselves. We knew that we wouldn’t get the candy unless we took accountability for ourselves. In a system where everyone is guaranteed a reward, there is no incentive to go the extra mile, and mediocre deeds will become the norm. If my sister and I were both guaranteed candy if only one of us behaved, it would’ve been likely that at least one of us would misbehave during each trip. Worse still, if we were guaranteed candy regardless of behavior, neither one of us would’ve behaved at all. I may not remember much from those days, but I certainly don’t remember feeling inadequate when my sister got a reward which she deserved. I also can’t find any mental scars from not getting that reward, all I can remember is when she got that candy, I wanted it, and resolved to do better next time so that I could have that candy. If I, as a pre-elementary school child, did not feel like I hadn't ‘measured up’, why should an elementary school-aged child feel any different?The answer is simple: they shouldn’t, the best self esteem is built upon being ‘singled out’, when you do something that only a few others have done, and you get rewarded, you feel good and others strive to feel the same. These feelings of being singled out have helped spur the development of programs such as Odyssey of the Mind®, a competitive problem solving competition. This program was founded in 1978 by Dr. C. Samuel Micklus, Professor Emeritus at Rowan University in New Jersey (What is Odyssey of the Mind? 8), and encourages kids to compete at a very young age, encouraging the development of earned self esteem by having kids work over a period of several months on one of five problems. Kids, in teams of five to seven and ranging in age from 6 to 18, put together a long term presentation which is judged on a variety of pre-set guidelines. Winners in regional and state levels can go on to compete with teams from around the world. Odyssey of the Mind®, as one of a handful of events where Elementary students are allowed to compete, is particularly popular with younger kids, where they are allowed to feel the true satisfaction of winning, and of a job well done.Wait though, with winners also comes losers right? According to today’s educational system, the losers should become traumatized from their loss, and will perform poorly in the future. Well, in over seven years of involvement with the program both as a competitor and volunteer, I’ve never heard of a child being traumatized by their experience of losing in Odyssey of the Mind®. Usually the best teams at the world finals consist of members who have lost the most in past competitions. These are the kids who wanted something, knew how it felt not to get it, and came and got it, and these are the kids who excel, not just in Odyssey, but in school as well.The aforementioned scenario goes against traditional teaching philosophy, but the problem with traditional teaching philosophy is that it hasn’t worked for the more then 30 years it’s been in place. As other countries’ students excel in a competitive environment, our country’s students struggle in a fruitless environment of meaningless praise, it is time for the United States to stop worrying about praising the collective student body for the works of a few individuals. We need to motivate our children with individual incentives for superior performance, not meaningless praise for mediocre deeds. Children know when they are being lied to; many children know that the praise they are spoon-fed day after day is full of nothing but proverbial empty calories. Let’s give these kids the sweet, filling bread of earned satisfaction, before they get too obese on hollow commendation.Works Cited
Colvin, Richard . "Losing Faith in Self-Esteem." School Administrator Magazine Feb 2000. 27 Mar 2006 .
"Self-esteem." Self-esteem- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia. 26 Mar. 2006 .
Shokraii, Nina H. . "The Self-Esteem Fraud: Why Feel-Good Education Does Not Lead to Academic Success.." USA Today January 1998. 26 Mar 2006 .
"What is Odyssey of the Mind?." Odyssey of the Mind. Odyssey of the Mind. 27 Mar. 2006 .
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Hmmm28% Voted for by Weydon, cosmosis.
I do agree that CONSTANTLY rewarding those that didn't do anything is not a good standard to set. But it's also important to note that some people have special needs or are gifted in some areas and not others. If they do "mediocre" in math, it may very well be an achievement for them.
Japanese schooling lacks this very much. There are very few remedial OR honors classes. The gifted and challenged are not adequately met. There is a lack of individualism as everyone is expected to meet the exact same standard. Conformity is very much expected.
The lack of personal flexibility is also matched by a lack of any signifigant stress on the creative side of the brain. Students are drilled the text and nothing but. They are tested solely on their memorization skills and not truly their ability to apply these skills. Critical thinking is not important.
Classes typically have the same homeroom every year. This makes for a high level of comfort and familiarity as well as teamwork--but only with the same students. Going into unfamiliar surroundings with different people is a foreign concept until high school.
Plus there are classroom conditions. While there are few small classrooms, teachers are highly respected and HIGHLY paid. There is a large budget in the education system, and this large budget is (as mentioned) not divided into special needs programs, which just makes the standard class have quite a bit of legroom.
Being overly careful of hurting people's feelings may have something to do with the lower standards of our schooling, but there are certainly other factors to consider. Plus, being attentive to people's feelings in itself is an important educational factor.
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Excessive self-esteem28% Voted for by Dwn, looking4realtruth.
Most of the harm to our society is caused by people with excessive rather than deficient self-esteem. It is the egotistical and egoistical people who put their own needs ahead of others. Low self-esteem people usually lack the confidence to do any real harm to others.
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August 29, 2006
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The formatting on this article is poor, unfortunately it's very hard to make any sort of indentation for paragraph with this site, but all the same the article (written by me for an english class) rings true. Our system is far too rooted in congratulating mediocrity, and is not condusive to academic success.Please register or login to comment! It's totally free