In our US education system, we have become concerned with preserving or promoting the self-esteem of students. The educators who initiated this use the psychological definition of the term to mean a persons sense of self worth or personal value. As opposed to a merriam webster definition of self-esteem which is a confidence and satisfaction in oneself.

I would never say that it is not important for students to believe in themselves, to feel important or valuable. But it is the source and method of developing self-esteem that I have observed that I question. Students who gain competence, and through competence a sense of confidence, and finally a sense of value in their own capacity to accomplish – have a self-sustaining self-esteem. That is, it is natural and does not require outside assistance or bolstering. This is the state that we are striving to acheive in students.

Any time we artificially boost, or bolster a student’s self-esteem, we risk setting him up for failure – that when the bolsters are removed, the student will fall, or crash. Moreover, a student’s self-worth or personal value should not derive from his performance at school. So when we adjust or “dumb-down” the requirements for success at school, or reduce by artificial means the variance between the highest performers and the lowest, to preserve or bolster the self-esteem of the lower performing students, we are communicating to all of the students some false messages.

Message 1: All students are valuable or worthy only as defined by their academic performance. If this were not true, then there would be no need to artifically adjust variance.

Message 2: Any value that students feel from outside the classroom is irrelevant – their self-esteem is only derived from their academic environment. Otherwise, we would expect teachers to use this when attempting to overcome students issues with self-esteem.

Message 3: All human self-worth and identity is derived from output or performance – not from simply being human, that is there is nothing outside of the human being who gives him value, it is only what comes out of him that gives him value. That is a completely humanistic viewpoint, incompatible with most of philosophy and all religious thought.

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I recognize that my self-esteem comes from my knowing my creator. My value as a human being does not come from my output only, but was given to me by the one who created me. Regardless of others estimation of my value, I know that my creator has valued me, like all other men. This does not mean that my output is not important, it simply is not identical to my value as a person.

In my family, we strive to give our children confidence. That is, we help them understand what they are capable of, and instill a desire to stretch and grow those capabilities by USING them. When I have done something, I KNOW that I can do it. That is confidence, and it is indeed sustainable. We do this by encouraging our children to take risks – to overcome challenges – and to know how it feels to fail. Because fear of failure is the enemy of confidence. Our children know that even when they don’t succeed, they are still valuable. Not the task was unfair, and it’s not your fault. That is a lie. The task was fair, you failed and its OK, I still love you, you are still valuable and worthy of my respect. In fact, I love you more because you had the guts to try. That is the way to build confidence. To teach children to stretch and grow knowing that the consequences of failure are not always permanent or detrimental, and that risks are to be calculated and taken based on the probability and consequences of failure.

In essence, a man becomes confident, when he closely approximates his capacity (because he has explored its limits), and assesses each risk based on the likelihood of failure and the likely consequences of failure and makes decisions about each risk accordingly.
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When we artificially reduce either the probability of failure, we actually reduce the confidence of the student, because he cannot explore the limits of his capacity, and assess the likelihood of failure. When we artifically remove the consequences of failure, we create apathy – because part of the motivation to succeed is removed.

So if we follow this logic, and teach students with the artificial bolsters to improve self-esteem, what we should end up with a generation of students who don’t know what they are capable of (because we did not allow them to explore their capabilities), and who are apathetic, not caring whether they accomplish anything (because we did not allow them to asses the consequences of failure).