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... [continues]

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