March 01, 2007
Do schools overemphasize "self-esteem"?
In the news yesterday:
Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."--CNN
Like many Americans, I have puzzled over some of the trends that have developed in our school system over the past 15 - 20 years. For example, some teachers have proposed that numerical metrics like grades should be discouraged, because students who receive poor scores might suffer from poor self-esteem as well. I have also read of teachers who have stopped using red ink to correct papers, because the color has been long associated with mistakes. Dodge ball supposedly makes children feel like victims (or aggressors). It is hard to find an article about education these days that doesn’t play to the “self-esteem” angle.
The United States is the most child-centered country on the planet; and I personally don’t want to see that change. Take one look at the way many children are treated in places like China and India, and you will agree that if we have to err in one direction, we should err on the side of child welfare.
Nevertheless, the excessive emotional coddling of children that has developed over the past 15 years or so has had many negative long-term consequences, as the article hyperlinked below describes.
I should point out that I didn’t grow up during the Great Depression or the 1950s myself. I was born in 1968, so my “childhood” pretty much stretches from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. This will seem like ancient times to a few of the younger readers, but my childhood was fairly recent in the big scheme of things. By the time I started school, the social and philosophical changes of the 1960s had already been largely factored into the educational system. I grew up in a comparatively “liberal” era.
My peers and I were given the message that childhood is a sheltered time in which you can try new things and enjoy yourself a little. There is nothing wrong with allowing kids to have fun; that is part of what childhood is for. But we were also constantly reminded that adulthood was just around the corner. I distinctly remember at least three of my elementary school teachers telling us that the adult world would be very demanding. More would be required of us in the future, so we had to learn math, reading, and the other skills of adulthood.
I am not sure that kids today are given this reality check. With all the emphasis on self-esteem, I am afraid that many of them reach the age of eighteen or twenty with no appreciation of the momentous challenges that they will face. The inhabitants of the adult world----employers, the IRS, creditors, etc.---are very rarely concerned with your self-esteem. Therefore, our current overemphasis on self-esteem in the school system may be hobbling the youngest generations with some very unrealistic expectations.
Notes:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/27/self.centered.students.ap/index.html
