Whatever Happened to the Self-Esteem Movement in America’s Classrooms?

For those true believers and wanna-be school reformers enamored with the social-emotional learning (SEL) that students must learn if they are to be “successful” in an information-driven economy and social-media-ridden daily life, take a brief look at the self-esteem movement launched in the 1980s. In subsequent decades, reformers stressed that students (as well as teachers) needed confident self-regard and a repertoire of personal and social skills. Not only were they to have high self-esteem but they were also expected to display that self-esteem daily at home and in school. Soon enough the phrase “self-esteem” became attached to school and classroom practices of frequent praise for children and emphasis on participation in activities rather than individual academic performance. Ridicule of this reform movement in particular and the self-help industry in general came from cultural conservatives within a few years. And cartoonists who took jabs at the concept that working on…