It always amazes me. What happens is some leftist decides the status quo isn't working well enough because it's not perfect (which is part of being a leftist) so they much change it (hope and change!). They ignore 50,000 years of human experience and develop new theories that they unleash on society when they get into power (and they're sneaky buggers and often are in power even when they lose at the ballot box). After about 50 to 70 years, they suddenly realize, hey, this isn't working! And instead of going back to what conservatives have been saying all along ("What we did for the past 50,000 years before you came along worked fine) they try to develop new novel ideas to fix the world.
So our children have been subject to about 50 years of "if we raise their self esteem they will learn" theory. So we get graduation ceremonies for kindergarten and while he have the kids with the highest self-esteem, they have the lowest test scores. In fact, test scores have remained flat despite huge increases in education spending (see here if you don't believe me).
So, guess what! The Washington Post is reporting (hat tip The Corner):
For decades, the prevailing wisdom in education was that high self-esteem would lead to high achievement. The theory led to an avalanche of daily affirmations, awards ceremonies and attendance certificates — but few, if any, academic gains.
Now, an increasing number of teachers are weaning themselves from what some call empty praise. Drawing on psychology and brain research, these educators aim to articulate a more precise, and scientific, vocabulary for praise that will push children to work through mistakes and take on more challenging assignments.
And this:
A growing body of research over three decades shows that easy, unearned praise does not help students but instead interferes with significant learning opportunities. As schools ratchet up academic standards for all students, new buzzwords are “persistence,” “risk-taking” and “resilience” — each implying more sweat and strain than fuzzy, warm feelings.
“We used to think we could hand children self-esteem on a platter,” Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck said. “That has backfired.”
Yes, you can't give empty praise to a child and expect them to work hard at learning. Conservatives have been saying this all along but our concerns were dismissed as old-fashioned. Funny how old-fashioned is suddenly in fashion!
I know that my self-esteem was highest when I got a decent grade out of a very tough but fair chemistry professor in college. I worked hard for that grade and I deserved the good feelings. And now days my self-esteem is highest when someone praises something I wrote that I worked on and tried to make as good as I could.
But getting praised for showing up doesn't work. About time the education establishment realized us conservatives knew what we were talking about.
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