A Scottish educator has warned that the culture of 'self-esteem' being fostered in schools is producing a generation of narcissists.
The growing expectation placed on schools and parents to boost pupils' self-esteem is breeding a generation of narcissists, an expert has warned.
Dr Carol Craig said children were being over-praised and were developing an "all about me" mentality.
She said teachers increasingly faced complaints from parents if their child failed a spelling test or did not get a good part in the school pantomime.
Schools needed to reclaim their role as educators, not psychologists, she said.
Dr Craig, who is chief executive of the centre for confidence and well-being in Scotland, was speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders conference in Birmingham.
Negative characteristic
She told head teachers the self-esteem agenda, imported from the United States, was a "a big fashionable idea" that had gone too far.
She said an obsession with boosting children's self-esteem was encouraging a narcissistic generation who focussed on themselves and felt "entitled".
"Narcissists make terrible relationship partners, parents and employees. It's not a positive characteristic. We are in danger of encouraging this," she said.
"And we are kidding ourselves if we think that we aren't going to undermine learning if we restrict criticism.
"Parents no longer want to hear if their children have done anything wrong. This is the downside of the self-esteem agenda.
"I'm not saying it's of no value… but you get unintentional consequences."
Parental responsibility
Since 2007, there has been a statutory responsibility on schools in England to improve pupils' well-being and primary and secondary schools are increasingly teaching social and emotional skills.
Indeed it is possible that Ofsted inspectors will soon appraise schools' performance in this area; and well-being could be one of the measures used in the school report card system that the government wants to introduce.
But Dr Craig told head teachers that this was not the role of schools.
"Schools have to hold out that they are educational establishments," she said.
"They are not surrogate psychologists or mental health professionals."
Learning about feelings from a professional in a classroom did not send out a positive message, she added.
And she warned there was a danger the more schools taught emotional well-being, the less parents would take responsibility.
"We run the risk of undermining the family as the principal agent of sociability," she said.
Hear, hear, Dr. Craig! I'm frankly astonished that an educator can be so courageous as to speak out about this. So many teachers, and so many educational systems, have bought into this 'self-esteem' twaddle that it's become doctrine and dogma. It's high time it was challenged, and exposed for the nonsense it is.
Peter
5 comments:
Nonsense is right! These coddled children ae in for a rude awakening when they get into the real world, just like the home schooled and religious schooled ones... And it's NOT going to be pretty!
I agree; let them earn self respect. Anything given, like this rampant self-esteem nonsense, can be taken away just as easily.
Jim
Dr Craig is spot-on. I married a narcissist (although I didn't know she was at the time). I was taken on an emotional rollercoaster and I lost count of the number of jobs she was fired from. All I can say is Thank God we never had kids.
She's not my problem any more, but she continues her whirlwind existance, leaving a trail of emotional devastation in her wake.
Be warned - Learn to recognise a narcissist - and keep well away!
Dr. Craig is correct, of course, but about 2 decades behind the real world in discovering the phenomenon.
At one point the fashionable psychologists thought criminals suffered from too little self-esteem, and raising us with more would fix it.
Most of 'em won't admit the obvious - that one of the problems with many bullies and some criminals is too much self-esteem, without anything to back it up. (For business tycoons and Marines who have something to back it up, well, they're different problems, but rarely threats to society.)
I'm very sorry other countries are importing our mistakes.
Post a Comment