Dinesh D'Souza takes down the educational "self-esteem" myth in an excellent Christian Science Monitor article. Joanne Jacobs has recently discussed this topic, and upon Mr. D'Souza's article, in her weekly Jewish World Review column.
The gist of all this criticism is that "self-esteem", and a single-minded pursuit of it, has become highly overrated in the educational world. Educators often downplay actual learning, because they believe that merely "raising self-esteem" is the key to better performance for students who typically underperform. The intentions may have been good, but they have certainly paved the road to hell. The liberal educrats intent on protecting self-esteem by attacking standardized tests have not gotten the results they desired:
Many liberal educators support restrictive speech codes and antiracism education because they wish to protect the self-esteem of women and minorities. So, too, many liberal activists don't like standardized tests because some people do better on those tests than others, and liberals worry that poor-performing students may suffer blows to their self-esteem.
Several years ago, a state-funded group called the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem conducted a study to explore the relationship between self-esteem and academic performance. The study found, to task force members' own evident chagrin, that higher self-esteem does not produce better intellectual performance. Nor does it produce more desirable social outcomes, such as lower teen pregnancy or reduced delinquency.
These findings have been corroborated by academic studies comparing the self-image and academic performance of American students with that of students from other industrialized countries...None of this is to suggest that the research on self-esteem shows no relationship between self-confidence and academic performance. There is a relationship, but it runs in the opposite direction. Self-esteem doesn't produce enhanced achievement, but achievement produces enhanced self-esteem.
This, of course, is self-evident, to anyone not brainwashed by the cult of educational jargon and bogus "self-esteem" programs. How on earth did the concept that basing a foundation of self-esteem and self-worth on nothing other than praise and warm fuzzies ever get off the ground? How was it missed that people who genuinely feel good about themselves often have the hard work and good deeds to show for it? Even for the educrats, it seems like a stretch.