Self-esteem and Performance in School

The book points out the belief that some have on self-esteem and its relation to work performance. Some people have been led to believe that low self-esteem in children causes them to perform more poorly in school. The book points out that some schools have acted on this notion by removing spelling bees or honor rolls in order to avoid harming the self-esteem of children. I found this particularly interesting because I remember hearing about something similar to this a few years back in my sociology course. My professor mentioned how some schools had removed their grading system. This mechanism was used to avoid having students with low self-esteem or a poor mental well being. Instead, they encourage children to learn from experience and to use their surroundings as a way of learning.

Though I don't think people should focus solely on a "grade" to determine how smart they are or what they are learning, I do think grades and competitive experiences are important in our school systems. We all learn a lot from our experiences in life, but also having the experience of competition is important to our development as well. Children need to learn the nature of competitions, and that in life, there will be people who are awarded for their success and some who are not. They also need to realize that by not receiving an award or honor doesn't mean that they have failed. Our lives are surrounded by competition. We compete for jobs, we compete for titles, and so forth, and if children grow up without learning this then I think they will have an even harder time understanding it when they actually are forced to compete. Even when they are in college, they will need to understand the idea of grades, honors, and awards. Otherwise they will probably feel very confused or it may even have a negative effect on how they adapt to college. If these people think we should be "sensitive" to children and remove competition, do they also think we should remove competition in our society?

Aside from these negative effects that may occur due to such policies, research has not been able to prove that low self-esteem has a negative impact on performance. I have personally seen this and experienced this. I remember in middle school and high school my self-esteem was lower than what it is now. However, my desire to do my best and perform in school was not related to how I felt socially (except when I had to give speeches >.<). I also noticed that those who were at the top of my class varied in self-esteem, and that in general, those with an inflated self-esteem usually had lower grades. As the book also pointed out, raising self-esteem in children may actually cause students to perform more poorly because their increased confidence in their natural abilities decreases the amount of time they spend studying. However, I think that performance in school is more related to motivation and morals/beliefs.

In all, self-esteem and performance are not as related as some people and schools think. It's not that self-esteem isn't important, and I'm not saying that people should have low self-esteem to perform better, it's more so that as the book says "the benefits of high self-esteem are largely limited to social and emotional areas and may not be as broad as people once thought." The way that we perform in work and school is not as socially influenced. I agree with the book, I think self-esteem is more related to our social interactions and emotional areas. I hope that schools do not continue to make new policies based on this belief. Instead, I hope that they try to encourage healthy competition.