Self-esteem movement vs. Academic Performance Cult

Parents Forum
1

<p>I've been reading that the "self-esteem movement" has been going to extremes. People lament that kids aren't allowed to fail anymore and that the system goes to excessive lengths to protect their self-esteem.</p>

<p>On the other hand, there's also the Academic Performance Cult that dictates being a perfect student, as if earning a degree from an Ivy-type school is an automatic ticket to success and anything less is an automatic ticket to failure. As a defector from the Academic Performance Cult, I am SHOCKED that the students here make my old high school self look like Ferris Bueller or Zack Morris in comparison. The students who drink the Kool-Aid now do things that would have been inconceivable in my day (even to me) like skipping lunch to take another AP class, using drugs to be able to study longer at night, taking Calculus BC without first taking Calculus AB, thinking it's possible to have a BLACK belt in karate and still have a weak EC record, worrying about the SAT in 8th grade, enduring required SUMMER homework, retaking the SAT after scoring 730V/800M/770W, and resorting to fancy tricks instead of going to bed earlier to ensure getting up in time. Then there are the dishonest tactics like cheating and suing one's way to be valedictorian.</p>

<p>This sounds SO contradictory. The Academic Performance Cult sounds like a sure way to DESTROY self-esteem and at least as bad for kids as the alleged excesses of the self-esteem movement. Maybe the promoters of both movements need to have a big mudfight. (I wonder which side would win.)</p>

<p>Comments, anyone?</p>

2

<p>Once people graduate from high school, they will realize that no one really cares about their self-esteem. :)</p>

3

<p>Just let kids be kids. Provide the opportunities, and let them find their passion. Adult coersion is like tinkering with nature. I believe you should just allow youngsters to experience as much as possible. They'll get plenty of good and bad along the way. They'll make some good decisions, some bad ones, and if they don't have the power to pick themselves up after falling, just offer a hand, they'll know how to use it.</p>

4

<p>I have to take issue with the either/or nature of this argument. My son's self-esteem vastly improved when we put him in harder courses (he skipped regular bio and went right into AP bio (a 4 on the exam), as well as taking Calc BC without taking Calc AB (a 5))... because he wasn't bored and his teachers liked him instead of trying to persuade him to do his homework. Achieving something real can be an enormous self-esteem booster to a kid.</p>

<p>The problem with the "self-esteem cult" that I've run into from time to time is that some people forget that you can't give someone self-esteem (although you can take it away)---they earn it for themselves.</p>

5

<p>our academic system indeed nurtures self-esteem at first, but then pulls back leaving kids amidst a fierce competition with each other </p>

<p>this is what I observed of my sister's education as she went through elementary school: she and her peers were taught that it does not matter how you perform in classes, that school is fun -- some teachers never handed back some assignments, so the students never saw their grades -- therefore it was demonstrated that how well you did on these was of no importance -- grades were always strictly confidential and often amounted to check-plus//check-minus, which reduced the importance of a grade since it did not appear in the usual letter scale -- in some classes no homework was assigned for the entire year(!) -- everything was done to improve students' self-esteem and to show that grades do not matter and attending school is done simply for fun</p>

<p>she will be entering high school in a year -- in high school things start to change in reverse -- grades suddenly gain monumental importance -- many students have trouble catching up with this concept as most 13/14 year-olds have a very vague concept of what college application process is like -- so why the heck should they suddenly start putting in effort to study, if before they were let off so easily? -- many students don't even know how to study because they were never taught study skills in their elementary school -- they have no basic math or written composition skills, no patience to sit down and read, and debilitated ability to comprehend what they read -- they were taught that they are all special little princes and princesses -- but as they enter HS, their parents start pounding on them to achieve, aim high, take a load of AP classes, get up at 5am every morning for track, be the community service club president, do a project to the point of winning at the local science fare, get scholarships, and do all of this at the same time</p>

<p>in college things get even worse -- if any of these kids get a chance to attend classes that are graded on a curve, they might be surprised to find out that the average in such classes can be a C+/B- grade-wise -- that in school it was simply enough to do as well as an average student (over 80%) to get a B -- but in college, doing as well as an average student in classes that are curved puts you in danger of receiving a C+ -- at this point students, and especially girls, who thought they’ll do fine in college lose a lot of their self-esteem -- i remember quite a few student who were in the entering class with me and who were considered top 10% at their schools suddenly start getting C's on their transcripts all through their freshman year -- most were very upset -- their confidence in themselves plunged</p>

<p>so witnessing this entire process my mother and I both grew very angry at how my sister's education was conducted in this county -- i was very lucky to receive education grades 1-8 abroad, which set me ahead 3 years of my united states peers in all subjects except language and US history -- from first grade we were taught that how you do in school matters – some grades were confidential but most were not, so if you did very poorly, everyone knew about it -- and if you did exceptionally poorly, you were dropped out of the school, and either got accepted into another school (miraculously) or went to work -- kids who wanted to drop out early were given a choice of quitting school after 8th grade (at 15 years of age) and going into a technical school to later work as hairstylist, or chef, or carpenter -- but grade 8 there equaled grade 11 in united states by sheer amount of how much was taught in during those 8 years, so technically these kids were not high school drop outs -- school was taken very seriously and we were aware that academic competition existed very early on</p>

<p>my sister is a bright kid, but i can see that 6 yeas of elementary school have skewed her understanding of the entire process -- i am afraid that she will face the competition later in life and not be well prepared for it -- or worse: she won’t not care very much or give up easily, because all these years she was taught that academic performance is of little concern -- that is why I think that trying to protect self-esteem of kids by first completely sheltering them from academic competition and then ripping this shelter apart is a failing strategy -- there should be competition grades one through twelve, but it should be kept at sane levels -- and self-esteem should not be increased at expense of academics, rather academics should never be the sole foundation of anyone’s self-esteem in the first place</p>

6

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<p>I've never met a single parent here on CC or in person who actually believes this. I think you are getting carried away. </p>

<p>It is well recognized here and elsewhere that there are many paths to success and nothing is ever automatic.</p>

7

<p>There is no requirement, necessity or particular wisdom in taking AB before BC.</p>

<p>Experience has shown for decades and throughout the country that, with proper preparation, good students can perfectly well take BC without AB. </p>

<p>That experience says nothing about your general issues of either self-esteem or cult of performance.</p>

8

<p>There are too many things jumbled together here, including the requisite swipe at Ivies.</p>

<p>I'll just address the issue of performance cult as measured by grades. The two are not synonymous. </p>

<p>If it's grades a student worships, very likely that student will want to take easier rather than harder courses in order to protect that all-important A or even A+. If it's performance that a student values,then the student will take the more challenging course, regardless of how s/he may end up doing in terms of grades.
Throughout 7-12th grades, we encouraged our S to take the courses he found the most stimulating. This meant taking APs and college-level classes. As long as he was comfortably in the middle of the pack, that was good enough. If he had wanted to get only As, he would have stuck with high school classes. Knowing he could achieve at least the median grade reassured him that he belonged in that course and boosted his self-esteem. He would have had none by taking easy high school courses and gotten all As. </p>

<p>There are ways to critique students' work and push them to achieve higher without destroying their self-esteem. In k-8, my S received no grades. I am thankful to his teachers for holdig him up to his own standards. He took their comments seriously when they said he was capable of more; he valued their praise more highly because he knew when it was deserved. Kids are not hothouse flowers that wilt easily without a steady rain of gushing praise and undeserved grades.</p>

9

<p>isn't the first semester of Calc BC basically all of Calc AB? Why would you take both? At my high school, anyway, it was one or the other.</p>