The Ebonics debate continues on the web, and Dangerous Dan's post opens with a general discussion of self-esteem:
One of the worst concepts of modern education is that it is the responsibility of schools to maximize their charges’ self-esteem. A youngster’s self-esteem is seen as all-important and so curriculum and policy get centered around it. Receiving an ‘F’ would be too harsh and detrimental to Johnny’s well-being, so he will get an ‘incomplete’ instead. Though Suzy’s work is inadequate and below average, she will get a B. Bobby can’t spell, but the teacher will coo at him about what a good effort he’s putting in, even if he’s putting in no effort at all.Personally, I don’t give a damn about students’ self-esteem. The purpose of school isn’t to make one feel good about himself, it’s to educate him. I suppose self-esteem has a bearing insofar as the student shouldn’t be humiliated or purposely degraded, but no efforts should be made to falsely increase it either...You now have teenagers and young adults entering the work force and they’re shocked at just how little employers care about their individuality or self-perception and how preoccupied said employers are with their knowledge and performance.
I agree wholeheartedly, because this has been my experience teaching college classes. I would see the same phenomenon over and over again - a student would struggle, I would meet them after class, we would work on the material, the student would not improve, and then I would suggest that perhaps they drop the class and try again next year, and I would suggest that if they thought statistics was so hard, perhaps they should switch majors.
And then I would have to console them, because they would act convinced that I thought they were a bad, or stupid person for failing this course. And I always thought, where is this coming from? They don't love stats. They're free to leave, blow off the class, take the F, and switch their major to Art so it wouldn't matter (I basically did the same thing, in reverse). They're young adults who have hundreds of choices. Why do they care what the teacher thinks about them so much?
A-ha. They care because all this focus on self-esteem in schools may have created students who only think well of themselves when their teacher approves of what they do, and they're stunned when they meet one who is blunt and doesn't coddle them. Admittedly, my evidence is anecdotal, but it seems reasonable to assume that if the teacher spends all day saying nice things solely to boost self-esteem, then when that stream of compliments goes away, the shaky sense of self-worth might, too.
Posted by kswygert at July 19, 2005 09:22 AM