Many moons ago, I sat in my 5th grade classroom on the first day of school and listened with delight as my teacher shared with us that she would not be responsible for assigning grades to us at the close of each semester. We, the 11 year old students, would be the final judges of our own academic performance, an idea that for obvious reasons delighted me. I had seen several changes to our grading structures throughout my short academic career, all of which seemed to fit a certain pattern. First our school had switched from the standard ABCDF scale (would love an explanation why there is no “E”) to the OSU scale – Outstanding, Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory. The train of thought here was that there were stigmas attached to any letter grade below an “A” and that this new scale would protect the feelings of lower grade recipients by gently reminding them that while their work fell short of special recognition, it certainly was satisfactory. In other words, little Jimmy feels better about getting an “S” then a “C”, and the parent still gets the report that their boy needs some work in math. Pretty quickly after that the OSU scale was changed to OSN – Outstanding, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement. It seems that the term unsatisfactory was a little a harsh and that it was impacting some of the children’s self esteem. This was the early nineties after all, when numerous psychologists and educators had begun to develop curriculum and rules to teach self esteem, arguing that it was as important as education itself.
I started thinking about this a few weeks ago during one of my numerous “what the hell is wrong with this world/country” rants that have escalated in number recently. In the midst of this I came across a study by a psychologist named Angela Duckworth, who in a nutshell found that self-esteem in the United States has gone way up while achievement has not. Apparently self esteem is one of the few topics that has been studied pretty in depth over the past 40 years or so so there is a great deal of data that allowed Dr. Duckworth to arrive at her conclusion. Her background as an education specialist kept her preoccupied with kids but I think it is fair to say that much of her findings could be expected to apply to older generations as well – specifically the generation of 25-40 year olds, a group that has contributed to the mess we are in now. Duckworth found that over the last 40 years there has been a massive uncoupling between one’s perception of their own competence and how much one likes themself . This obviously coincides with the “self esteem at all costs” mantra of parental and educator groups throughout the country, the same group that pushed the grade yourself agenda that I experienced above.
What does this have to do with anything you may wonder? Simply put, I believe that the proliferation of self-esteem boosting institutional behavior has had perhaps the greatest role in us landing in the predicament we are in today. We have been programmed to believe that results do not matter anymore, that the only underlying notion of success is that we feel good in our own shoes. Now this in a vaccuum is not the worst concept. I could certainly argue that a society measuring success and happiness by win-loss metrics would create a host of problems as well. But the truth is that self-esteem should be earned, and there is nothing wrong with being humbled and taking your lumps. Duckworth goes onto mention her conclusion that parents today never want to say anything critical of their children. They organize soccer leagues that do not keep score, lest their children begin to feel down on themselves for not winning. But we all know that the reality is that winning and losing is perhaps the most valuable concept that organized sports teach our children. Learning to never get too down with a loss or too high with a win is a critical and valuable life lesson. Learning that life does not end with a loss is important, and having coaches and teammates that demand that you stand up to play again breeds resilliency and toughness. Most importantly, we learn that life is not always fair, that sometimes despite all of our efforts others are better than us, that others cheat to win, and that sometimes our heads get too big for our bodies and we embarrass ourselves.
These are all lessons that in my opinion should be serving us all well as we face what must be some of the most trying times for people throughout the country. Our country needs grit right now, not people who are so inexperienced with failure and loss that at the first sight of it they quit. We seem to have spent the last few decades just congratulating one another, certain that we as a people and as a culture were on the right track – I mean look how happy we were. But that sort of blew up in our face and we are all taking our lumps now. It is a humbling feeling and I can certainly understand, especially under the context of the feel good 90’s, how the daunting task of re-building America could force weaker people to quit. That is the scary circular logic here. Our collective values have weakened us to the point that we cannot fight the very problems the values created.
When I coached high school water polo we always had a week before the season to push our kids hard to help us guage who could most help us be succesful as a team. We ran a number of drills – swimming drills, ball handling drills, shooting drills – all that were intended to display the various levels of talent comprising the team. I never viewed these as the most important indicators of value though. For that we used a drill where we wore the kids down through swimming and then unbeknowenst to them assigned them a partner that was to dunk them underwater when they came up for a rest. I watched this drill hard, looking for signs of fight in the kid. The best players – and usually not the most talented kids – were always the ones that fought back; that showed heart. A kid who could swim fast but had no heart was useless because eventually he would find someone faster, lose his edge and quit. But a kid with heart, well he is always ready to go and never backs down.
I think of that drill as I hear our leaders today shouting that we need the best and brightest of minds to take us out of this mess. Well brains are nice, but brains without heart do us no good. I think instead, all of us need to be reminded of the virtues of grit and fight our way out of this thing. It will take each and everyone of us to take our losses and be reminded that we can always get up. Now is the time to earn our self-esteem, to behave in a way that we can all be proud of for generations to come. I just hope that the damage has not already been done, that enough of us can remember that losing just brings with it the challenge of a rematch. After all, it is important to remember that great accomplishments are by definition arduous – otherwise they are simply accomplishments.
3 responses so far ↓
Get Sladed // July 27, 2009 at 9:15 pm |
Now THAT? I call THAT inciteful.
I know this is really about our economic collapse but I’d like to add two things to your underlying premise about self-esteem. First, as you pointed out, self-esteem is pretty useless if it is not based on reality. If you think you are good at something but you’re not, there’s a good chance it will get you into trouble. 2nd, this is part of the reason that many of the generation that’s now in their mid-20’s has such a sense of entitlement. When they get a job they don’t believe they should have to do the grunt work or start at the bottom. They’re too good for that and think that “paying their dues” is unnecessary. In many businesses across the country, this is a real problem.
kellenarno // July 30, 2009 at 1:29 pm |
I completely agree with you. My generation (in their mid-20s) were in many ways the first group that were raised in the era of sensitivity. Like everything else, moderation is key, and unfortunately many parents, educators, and leaders went too far on the sensitivity thing and kids learned that things are handed to you. It is a toxic foundation and we are all paying for it right now.
I understand that at the top of this financial collapse are men of an older generation but let’s be honest; the face of this collapse is the face of those 24-30 year old bright eyed investment bankers, mortgage brokers, and traders that peddled the crack their bosses were providing. Sadly it fit their world view: minimum input for maximum output.
Dan // August 4, 2009 at 3:26 pm |
Was having similar thoughts recently, more along the lines that I think it’s fair to say that people who have done horrible/unforgiveable things tend to have pretty lofty opinions of themselves. Sociopaths (read: newly minted MBAs at Goldman) certainly don’t need more self-esteem and aggrandizement.
To be fair, as a part of that self-esteem generation, I find I do have to check myself consistently to avoid the taking the easy way out/grunt work/etc.
What’s exciting about this transformational opportunity for our generation, as you alluded to at the end there, is that we have a chance to define ourselves here by our responsibilities…and not to feel or act as though we are oppressed or burdened by them.