Self-Esteem and Education

With the new millennium marching on and technology advances at "superhighway" speeds, why are inner city students underachieving academically at alarming rates? Are the old methods of teaching ineffective on new millennium students? Does the education system need to discover a "new and improved" teaching technique to help bring these students up to par? In his article, "I Can't Spell Cat, But My Self-Esteem is High", Patrick A. Hall emphatically rebukes the notion that there is some miraculous new system or teaching technique out there to better educate our inner city children than the proven, old fashioned way of hard work and discipline when he writes, "I wish to God that black and white educators in charge of our public schools would cease their Arthurian quest for the educational holy grail and just teach our children...". Hall argues that educators are relying upon unproven theories to accommodate students instead of focusing on the methods which have successfully stood the test of time, but require dedication and accountability from both student and teacher. His main argument focuses on the emphasis educators put on building a child's self-esteem as a means to better educate them. A theory which Hall believes has failed miserably. He also argues against watering down the curriculum may help a student feel good but the consequences have left those children far behind their peers in "better" schools. He also takes aim at the idea of having role models in the classroom

I agree with Hall's assessment of the state of education in our inner city schools. Working at one myself, I have seen first hand the problems faced by educators and their feeble attempts at a quick fix to the problems. Hall raise some important issues which need to be addressed if there is going to be any substantial change in the success our inner city student have in keeping up with the rest of the pack. Self-esteem should not be the focus of educators but, it should be one of the results of good education. Raising standards and not lowering them would not only improve achievement levels but would also improve the self-esteem of students. Teachers bear some responsibility in the failure of students and need to be held to a higher standard too!

Self-esteem is not something you can give to someone else it must come from within. The idea that making students feel good about themselves is more important than the disciplines of education is simply ridiculous. Self-esteem is gained through positive accomplishments. Education itself is nothing more than a series of positive accomplishments. Many educators, in the name of self-esteem, have filled students with a temporary sense of self-worth. Students feel good about who they are, initially, but when they get out into the real world their lack of education is revealed, sometimes with devastating consequences.

To facilitate this feel good mentality, educators have watered down the curriculum and lowered their expectations hoping to motivate students academically. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened. The less a student is expected to do, quite obviously, the less he/she will do. In other words, most students will only achieve to the level that is required of them. The higher the standard, the higher a student achieves. Lowering the standards for students who have fallen behind only ensures they will never catch up. These students my graduate high school with a decent grade point average because of the lower standards, but they will never be able to compete with other students who have been challenged and held to a higher standard. Lowering expectations is only setting these children up for future failure, failure if they get into college and failure when they join the workforce. This highlights the need for more accountability for our teachers.

The title "teacher" applies not only to the person in the classroom giving instruction, but also to the parents of the student. Teachers in the classroom must be highly qualified and highly committed. For students to learn they need a teacher who has a plan, the resources needed to execute that plan, and the persistence