What Is the Goal of Educaton, Learning or High Self Esteem?

Photo courtesy Pexels.com

A few years back I wrote here about The Coddling of the American Mind. In it, authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt address the question, "Are children today being raised too safe to succeed?" A corollary to this theme, that I've intuited but not scientifically studied, has to do with another area of fragility: bruised egos. The result is that our education system sends kids to college who are ill-prepared.

When our daughter was a senior in high school we attended a parent-teacher conference in which we witnessed (across the hall) one of the parents giving a blistering response to her daughter's grades. It's possible that school teachers have gotten tired of being raked over the coals for their honest assessment, and deal with it by letting it be someone else's problem.

So my attention was captured by a headline that read, "Inside the dizzying world of false student achievement." The article draws attention to Gallup Poll data that indicated more than half of America's students are performing below grade level standards. And yet, "almost nine in 10 parents said their child is at or above grade level in reading (88 percent) and math (89 percent)."

The article's author, Josiah Padley, asks, "Why are parents so disconnected from their children?"

One answer has to do with report cards. Even though test scores show that students are underperforming, report cards tell a different story. 79 percent are getting Bs or better. This has been a systemic trend for quite some time.

As I read this article I thought about a writer friend (I'll call her Anna here) who taught senior level English at UMD. Anna was frustrated. Her first teaching job was "Remedial English" which meant teaching freshman how to write a paper. After a couple years at UWS and UMD, she'd had it with that. These kids had gone through 12 years of schooling and hadn't learned how to write. How were accepted into college?

This prompted her to jump to teaching seniors, which Anna found equally exasperating. These seniors were so unready for the real world. She chose to jump ship altogether.

In today's schools, self-esteem often overshadows learning, prioritizing students' feelings over academic rigor. This shift stems from a well-intentioned desire to foster confidence but leads to inflated grades that don't reflect true mastery. 

Teachers, pressured to ensure students "feel" successful, may lower standards or offer lenient grading, diluting educational integrity. As a result, students receive better grades than their performance warrants, creating a false sense of achievement. This undermines critical thinking and resilience, leaving students unprepared for real-world challenges. Honest grading, while tougher, better equips students for growth, encouraging genuine learning over superficial validation. True self-esteem comes from overcoming challenges, not avoiding them.

Here is the article that prompted this blog post.