But it keeps stumbling on, seeming not to notice. A long article last week in the New York Times sounded very much like an obituary. One obvious factor mentioned in the Times is that the increasing emphasis on school standards and achievement has weakened the hold of self-esteem theory and the preoccupation with feelings at the expense of actual learning. This is certainly so. But no study has ever demonstrated a connection between feeling good about oneself and improved performance.
Some students feel terrible about themselves and become academic and social successes.
Others brim with self-confidence and do awful work. Helping to dumb down. Since 1989, the research on self-esteem has been devastating. When psychologists Harold Stevenson and James Stigler tested the academic skills of elementary school students in the United States, China, Japan, and Taiwan, the Asian students outperformed the Americans, but the U.S. students felt better about themselves and their work. They had managed to combine high self-esteem with poor work.