"Self-esteem has gone up in the United States; achievement has not."
incharacter.org
incharacter.org
With no connection there at all, it removes one of the largest motivators, especially in elementary and middle school when for many people there is very limited pressure to work for academic success in the first place. This decoupling is likely to cause a decrease in the overall amount of work put in by the students.
Perhaps teaching will have to change and therefore improve. Maybe instead of spending time memorizing data for fear of a bad grade, students spend time really learning about the subject now that the focus is on the subject rather than the grade.
I think that when I were in high school if I cared nothing for my grade, I would pay rapt attention in those classes that interested me personally (for me it was math and physics). I would almost completely ignore the other classes and in best case I would spend that class time reading about physics, but more likely daydreaming.
Putting the focus on the subject I think would work quite nicely when it is intinsicly interesting to that student, but for all other subjects I believe there needs to be some form of external motivator.
If the students see grades as important (because their self esteem and pride is at least partially involved for instance, or because they fear not getting into their chosen college) then that can be the external motivator. Otherwise some other reason will need to be fabricated.
Basically, the students are already forced to be there.
Stop worrying about how everyone is measuring up against each other and the rest of the world. If you leave out the measuring stick and just focus on teaching and learning, yes there will be people who still don't learn but, imo, its an overall win and not by a small margin.
Yes, I am certain I could become interested in them, but there would have to be a reason for it. I am not intrinsically interested in them. This means that for me to actually put effort into them some external motivation would be necessary. When I went through, grades and their tie to college admission (and my parents emphasis on them) was quite sufficient. But if I thought lower grades were just fine, then I would still have learned a great deal about the subjects I was interested in, but very little about the others.
Let's face it, some kids are just not very talented. To claim otherwise is a disservice to the really talented kids, and it's also dishonest and harmful to the others. If we give them a more realistic view of the world early on, it will eliminate the just-graduated-what-to-do-now haze that everyone here goes through after highschool and college.
Someone who's quick on his feet and unusually coordinated would be worthless on a tennis court if they don't bother to practice, learn good technique and strategy, and practice.
What will happen is worse than rewarding those who don't show talent -- it encourages those who DO have talent to not bother to develop it.
This. I was looking for a long time for a reason why just boosting self-esteem unconditionally is wrong, but could not find a proper wording - thank you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset_(book)
Telling people they are "smart" or "talented" can make them defensive about that and afraid to fail, or think that putting in effort is a failure in itself.
Of course not being afraid to fail, and putting in effort, is how you become "smart" and "talented" in the first place.
(It's worth noting the book itself is a bit "American" and fluffy in parts, but the theory is good)
Quote from the Wikipedia page:
Education:
Mindsets have origins, and parents, teachers and coaches happen to be key in their development. Every word or action they send is a message that can be either judgmental or developmental. The problem here is that the majority of the time parents, teachers and coaches do what they think is best for the child, without realizing that they are doing exactly the opposite. Sometimes, by praising children, they diminish them. Praise should be given to the effort and persistence rather than intelligence or talent. For example, if a child worked hard on his homework then he must be recognized, but if another child did the homework without much effort at all, but achieved the expected results, instead of praising him you should give him a more difficult task. The growth mindset in education focuses on expanding the students' knowledge and ways of thinking and investigating the world. Grades are not seen as an end in themselves, but as a means to continue to grow. The best thing to do is to teach children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.
“Praise should deal, not with the child's personality attributes, but with his efforts and achievements“. - Haim Ginott
In Cupertino, where the Asian population has flocked in search of excellent public schools, there is a new form of "white flight," i.e., Caucasian families moving out of the area so that their kids will escape going to schools that have high standards.
I am not making this up. I got it from an article in the Merc about 2 or 3 years ago.
Now that epitomizes pathetic. Or maybe the American way 2.0: "If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
It's hard to say what's worse, litigation making it into actual courts to force science teachers to add 'intelligent' design to science classes, or people fleeing from schools because their standards are too tough for their brats.
I'm American but I live in a post-Communist country, and what I've seen in terms of the generations who have had their ambition destroyed is heart-rending. Yet I feel I'm seeing the same in the U.S. as these newer generations have their ambitions stoked and their work ethic demolished.
Just this morning I went to Disney.com with my 3-year-old and there was a "kite-flying" game. All you had to do was hit the enter key to make the kite do tricks. And the voice over was: "You're amazing!", "You're very good at kite tricks." and "I've never seen such incredible tricks." She was hitting the enter key randomly.
And I thought, "This is so American," and I turned it off. I want her to know that she is talented, but that if she wants to be good at anything she'll have to work her ass off. The cure for the low-self-esteem disease is not mindless, superfluous praise; it's recognizing each step in the journey and encouraging the next one.
There are many examples on how American society acts very encouraging towards kids, as opposed to Europeans.
The most useful article of the bunch seems to be this one, focusing on how to develop and extend one's persistent side: http://www.incharacter.org/article.php?article=151
So make marathon running a criteria by which people are evaluated. I'm not even kidding. Doesn't matter if it takes them 6 hours, since we're measuring character, not athletic ability.
That kind of evaluation works only when you're trying to breed a certain type of worker, like West Point is doing. But in a dynamic world (like our own capitalist environment), you can't predict where success is going to come from. Look at Bill Gates, he's a dropout...under that evaluation system he would have no "grittiness" whatsoever. What if he had approached achievement as a marathon? He probably still would have been "successful", but I doubt he would be bloody rich.
It's not grit that matters, nor is it self-esteem. The only thing that correlates with success/achievement in our day and age, for students and all of the above, is exploiting opportunity. Those who do, win. Those who don't, lose. Plain and simple.
You only think that for the first few miles. Then your mind enters a zone where you can really think about that tricky problem you were working on...
Really? I've noticed this phenomenon in the exact opposite end of the socioeconimic spectrum.
I've heard the same story time and again from friends from disadvantaged backgrounds; how they regularly were mocked by friends and family for using proper grammar or for even going to college at all.
Education and self-improvement were seen as nothing more than pretension while their friends were damned proud of their own ignorance.
That being said, I think it's too early to tell what this will turn out to have been: a harbinger of decadence or an overreaction against previous generations' inhumane treatment of children. There was an awful lot of violence and degradation to react against; still is, of course, but surely less so than there used to be. It's understandable if, in the course of correcting that, the pendulum swang too far the other way for a while (a generation, say). Signs are beginning to appear of American society waking up from this nonsense. I hope it does.
Oh and in the process, perhaps we can also lose the sickening "everything revolves around the children" parenting style that goes along with it.
Great article here: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/25/opinion/oe-baumeiste...
Or giving a shit. It's unfair to judge one's self-discipline based on their performance in an activity they deem unproductive. People often hold compulsory education in the same esteem as at-will employment, analyzing it as though it were the student's "job," which is an error. Juvenile studies that fail to acknowledge this critical factor in the K-12 experience are useless when applying their findings to adults and general human behavior.
That being said, I agree that the current educational system makes it pretty hard to have this attitude. I certainly didn't.
agreed. education lags 25+ years behind the realities of being a productive member of society.
I'd like there to be a minimum age for teaching, say 50 or 60, so that we don't get kids (in the sense of experience of the real world) teaching kids. That'd neatly solve the ageism problem too, it would be normal to work in industry for 30-40 years, then go into teaching until you feel like retiring.
There are much worse jobs than teaching.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3506971.html
tend to show that the best teachers get squeezed out of the occupation the most rapidly, with lousier teachers hanging on to enjoy the job security and other nonsalary benefits. And probably at present the lack of attraction of (public sector) teaching to some job applicants results from the known low quality of many workers in that sector.
My conviction, having taught for some years, is that what the American school system asks children to do is not groundbreaking intellectual work. One of the reasons self-discipline is so incredibly important is that almost anybody really can do the work if they want to, though, of course, not all children want to.