
"Self-esteem has gone up in the United States; achievement has not." - robg
http://www.incharacter.org/article.php?article=147
======
timwiseman
I find the statement towards the end that in the United States now achievement
has been virtually decoupled from self-esteem to be both true from my own
anecodotal experience, and frightening.

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.

~~~
david927
> _This decoupling is likely to cause a decrease in the overall amount of work
> put in by the students._

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.

~~~
christofd
I remember visiting my cousin in Pittsburgh, P.A., in high school (from
Germany, where I went to school) and they were handing out candies for solving
simple arithmetic problems in math class. I was like... what???

There are many examples on how American society acts very encouraging towards
kids, as opposed to Europeans.

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anigbrowl
Hrmm. Many essays extolling the virtues of grit (see 'current issue), but how
are they measuring it? Why do people have grit in some situations and not
others? Do people with especially low self-esteem have more or less grit?
There's a lot of hand-waving going on.

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>

~~~
gaius
_The gritty person approaches achievement as a marathon._

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.

~~~
sethb
Then what would happen to all the smart people who would think "why in bloody
hell am I running a (filthy) marathon when I could be doing something
important???"

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.

~~~
gaius
_Then what would happen to all the smart people who would think "why in bloody
hell am I running a (filthy) marathon when I could be doing something
important???"_

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...

------
dschobel
_This is the problem with the “self-esteem at all costs” message. Self-esteem
should be earned. I find that parents today, at least those in a high
socioeconomic bracket, never want to say anything critical of their children._

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.

------
gruseom
I completely agree about the excesses of the self-esteem craze. My kids were
in a gymnastics program once where, at the end, there was a mini "olympics"
and _everybody got a gold medal_. Pathetic. (Admittedly, this was in San
Francisco.)

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.

------
rajat
Self esteem that doesn't come from real achievement is delusion.

Great article here: [http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/25/opinion/oe-
baumeiste...](http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/25/opinion/oe-baumeister25)

------
known
I think there are no REAL problems inside America. Developing
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World> to First World is a good problem
America can solve.

------
erlanger
> I’d say that self-discipline is at least as important as IQ for earning good
> report card grades.

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.

~~~
scott_s
End of that very same paragraph:

 _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._

~~~
erlanger
Briefly noting a vital detail is very different from factoring it into one's
theories.

