OK, No More Group Hugs Until Those Math Scores Improve!

This article in today's Washington Post jumped out at me. (Stories that are reality-based tend to stand out in MSM publications.) I couldn't help chuckle reading how dismayed these professional educators must be to learn that faux self-esteem pronunciations are no substitute for actual learning.

The story is entitled 'For Math Students, Self-Esteen Might Not Equal High Scores'. The article points out that:

It is difficult to get through a day in an American school without hearing maxims such as these: "To succeed, you must believe in yourself," and "To teach, you must relate the subject to the lives of students."

But the Brookings Institution is reporting today that countries such as the United States that embrace self-esteem, joy and real-world relevance in learning mathematics are lagging behind others that don't promote all that self-regard.

Consider Korea and Japan.

According to the Washington think tank's annual Brown Center report on education, 6 percent of Korean eighth-graders surveyed expressed confidence in their math skills, compared with 39 percent of U.S. eighth-graders. But a respected international math assessment showed Koreans scoring far ahead of their peers in the United States, raising questions about the importance of self-esteem.

If you think your self-esteem can bear it, you can read the whole article here.