Schools Have Implemented Self Esteem Programs

❖ Perhaps the last thing that should be mentioned when relating to how pupils learn and develop self-esteem is. “The question is, not how intelligent is the child, but in what ways is the child intelligent?”

In the article, “Changes in Self Esteem During Middle School Year”, it gives information about self esteem, and what effects it, which insinuates that self esteem is a recurring problem in middle schools. “...ethnicity, social class, gender, and social contexts can lead to changes in self esteem,” says the author. This quote shows that many factors influence changes in self esteem. These factors include dating, although it isn’t mentioned. Dating violence can strongly influence a person’s self esteem. “Gender can also effect changes in self esteem during the adolescent years. Girls consistently experience sharper declines than boys in self esteem.” This quote goes into greater detail about how gender can influence self esteem. Sometimes this

The authors found that self-esteem can be increased via classic conditioning. Consequently, they found that low self-esteem can be raised by applying basic learning principles (Baccus, Baldwin, & Packer, 2004). Their findings support the theory that self-acceptance is influenced by positive feedback from other people. These findings may initiate an effort to research possible methods to increase self-esteem as a means of ridding society of the various social ills that are thought to be caused by low self-esteem. Therefore, future research should also include the effect of the conditioning task on various aspects of social behavior. This in turn, will help determine the amount of influence, if any, that self-esteem has on behavior. The results also suggest that implicit low self-esteem is not permanent and can be modified (Baccus, Baldwin, & Packer, 2004). This provides hope that individuals suffering from implicit low self-esteem can find relief by receiving treatment to increase their self-esteem in an effort to experience a greater sense of well being. This potentially could lead to a method for treating depression.

A needs assessment was conducted to ensure students, parents, and faculty/staff voiced their opinions of the needs identified during the school year (see Appendix A). Through the outcome of the needs assessments, it was determined that female students in the freshman and sophomore grade level would benefit from a self-esteem group. Recommendations of potential participants were provided by faculty and staff. A meeting with the school administration was held to present the idea of the small group action plan (see Appendix B). Once approved, the school administration provided potential dates, times, and locations for the group counseling session to be held. Conversations

What is self- esteem? Self- esteem is confidence in one’s own worth or abilities. In “Grades & Self- Esteem”, author Randy Moore (2007) stated that the level of performance of the students decreased while schools are building the self- esteem in the students. Author Alfie Kohn (1994) stated in his article “The Truth about Self- Esteem” to contradict Moore’s opinion that academics and self- esteem are not related. Moore discussed some beneficial points which are useful for the students, but in some cases his argument was not giving better meaning. I agree from Moore’s article that the American students do not perform as well academically as students from other countries. I do not

Emotionally, Brian seems to be struggling with his self-esteem, especially when it comes to his education. “I can’t!” is a phrase Brian frequently says and this may be because he does not seem to be receiving any positive encouragement at home, from his peers, or even from his teachers (Slavin, 2012). At home Brian’s family may work long hours including at night and may not give him the attention or positive encouragement he needs to succeed. In his neighborhood, Brian spends a majority of his time with high school boys who may teach him inappropriate language and behavior and may not provide positive encouragement to succeed in school. In school, Brian’s peers are very negative towards him, and because of this many students may not provide him the positive encouragement to attend school. Also, when observing teachers that interact with Brian, it may seem that many of his teachers do not tolerate his behavior or laziness so many punish him instead of using reinforcements and positive encouragement. When Miss. Kane’s interacts with Brian, I noticed she seems to not put up with his behavior nor does she give him positive reinforcement. Although Brian listens to Miss. Kane’s demands, I believe if she encouraged him to do better and positively reinforced him, Brian’s self-esteem may increase. Brian needs to believe in himself and for him to do so the people surrounding him need to be positive and encourage him to do his best. According to Slavin (2012) in Educational Psychology:

The main goal of this report was to assess reliability and validity through the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale where participants rated their level of self-esteem from 1-7. A 1 indicated that they “strongly disagree” and a 7 indicating that they “strongly agree” with that trait. Along with this we used Cronbachs alpha to indicate the consistency within the scale.

The self-esteem movement was developed in 1969 after Nathaniel Branden wrote “The Psychology of Self-Esteem.” The idea Branden proposed was that self-esteem is essential to overall success in life. This caused many parents to believe that, if they could start by increasing their children’s self-esteem they would become more successful in the future. This brought up ideas intended to help children gain more confidence and self-worth. For example, all children should receive participation awards so that no child would feel bad for not winning. Consequently, studies have found that children’s self-image may be negatively impacted by the ideas behind participation trophies and awards. Yet, parents still encourage rewards be given to all children.

What is self- esteem? Self- esteem is confidence in one’s own worth or abilities. In “Grades & Self- Esteem”, author Randy Moore (2007) stated that the level of performance of the students decreased while schools are building the self- esteem in the students. Author Alfie Kohn (1994) stated in his article “The Truth about Self- Esteem” to contradict Moore’s opinion that academics and self- esteem are not related. Moore discussed some beneficial points which are useful for the students, but in some cases his argument was not giving better meaning. I agree from Moore’s article that the American students do not perform as well academically as students from other countries. I do not agree from Moore’s opinion that the

Steiger, Allemand, Robins, and Fend (2014) hypothesized that not only the level but also the change in self-esteem affect depression. Using data from over a 23 year span, they investigated adolescent level and change in self-esteem and examined their predictive effects on adult depressive symptoms two decades later. Self-esteem was assessed annually from age 12 to 16, and depression was assessed at age 16 and 35. Subsequently, they found that results demonstrated that both the level and change in self-esteem served as predictors for adult depression (Steiger et al., 2014). Individuals who entered adolescence with low self-esteem, and or whose self esteem declined further during

In Public School, social interactions and encounters are definitely on a more frequent day to day basis than homeschools are. Parents many times are very worried about exposure, which is absolutely understandable. The activities and engagements of this present world are frightening and we should be troubled about them. However, one might argue that exposure is good, healthy even for children because in that they can learn how to interact with all types of people. They can be exposed to different situations every day and how to handle the different personalities of people, along with the conflicts some may experience. I do believe that the public school system can aid in boosting a child 's self-esteem and self-confidence. An example of social activities such as: sports, outings, clubs and just the normal day-to-day basis interaction with friends can aid in endorsing their self-esteem.

Picture this: A teenage girl strolls into the bathroom mascara in hand, ready to fix her messed up eyelashes that had gotten worn out after the first three hours of the day. Mascara can either be a girl's best friend by helping them feel like they look better with only a little bit or their worst enemy by making girls feel like they need to constantly apply more to their eyelashes, and add other makeup to more features of their face, to look beautiful. The more often these girls apply mascara, it is as if a balloon filled with negative thoughts about their appearance, is being pulled closer to them and they don’t know what to do with those thoughts. These girls with low self-esteem continue to check the mirror and apply more makeup. These actions keep pulling the balloon closer and closer to them. Once the balloon draws so close to them, BAM! It is as if the balloon pops and all of the negative thoughts about their appearance become stronger than ever.

Hanich & Jordan (2004) completed a study that showed that students have a realistic understanding of their academic skills. The method for this study was that students rated their competence in mathematics, reading and general intellect. Surprisingly, the student’s beliefs of their abilities were generally what their results showed. This study shed light on student’s awareness for their own need for reading comprehension improvement. This study agrees with the researcher that comprehension is an issue but also shows student self esteem is an issue as well.

Self-Esteem refers to an individual’s personal judgment of his or her own worth (Englert, Weed, & Watson 2000). Before the 1980’s, most researchers typically computed correlations between children’s self-esteem and academic success. One comprehensive review of research up to them found that most studies reported positive correlations, usually form 0.20 to 0.40 on a 1.00 scale. But since correlations between IQ and academic performance range from 0.50 to 0.70, such results show, at best, a moderate relationship between self–esteem and academic performance (Moeller 1994). Although this is important, my study will use college students and not children.

Many United States school districts have recently taken steps towards raising students’ values of self-concepts of themselves, or their self-esteem. Most of us correlate negative self-concepts, or low self-esteem, with learning difficulties and social reclusion. Recent psychological research has also discovered that inflated self-concept is correlated to violence, including bullying and even criminal acts. While reminiscent of the neo-Freudian Narcissistic Personality Indicator, Carl Rogers’ phenomenological theory is a better explanation of the apparent drive towards bullying and positive self-concepts.