I call bullshit on this whole “self-esteem” debate, because switching from red to purple ink has FUCK-ALL to do with self-esteem. It’s utter nonsense. If you know me at all, you know that I generally find myself arguing AGAINST the anti-PC crowd here. I see a lot of threads whining about “such-and-such is too PC - Waaaah!” “Why can’t I say ‘Oriental’?” “Why can’t I say ‘Jap’?” “What’s wrong with racist caricatures on T-shirts?” “What’s wrong with selling thong panties with sexy slogans on them to 12-year-old girls?”. And I usually let 'em have it, because sometimes there’s a really good reason for being “PC”, and I’m the first to point out when that’s the case.
But this - this purple-ink crap - this is 100% GARBAGE.
I agree with much of the rest of your post, but this statement is self-evidently absurd. Everyone does not deserve self-esteem, and those who do certainly don’t deserve it in the same amounts. Now, most people people can find something they do that’s worthy of self-esteem (often boiling down to character), and that itself can be profound. But to propose that everyone magically “deserves” self-esteem is to propose a world in which our actions do not matter. They do. Good actions are worthy of self-esteem, bad actions are not.
Now, that doesn’t excuse people who forget that bad actions may not result from bad character, especially bad actions by children. But the harms of the relativistic world you seem to endorse are, I believe, far greater to far larger numbers of people than the number of people allegedly “helped” through frostering exaggerated notions of self-worth.
I couldn’t possibly disagree more. Self-esteem is not about “I am good at baseball”, but rather “I am.” It’s about claiming one’s birthright to happiness and success. It’s about knowing that one belongs in the world. Everyone gets that. It’s a prize for the simple accomplishment of being born.
Well, that’s a slight improvement over your initial formulation. But fundamentally, breathing is not an accomplishment. And unhappy excellence produces far more more for far greater numbers than does happy mediocrity.
Where are you people getting this? Nobody is saying that purple or green ink means “don’t fix the mistakes.” Nobody is saying using a differently colored ink means “everybody gets an A.” Presumably, all the comments and grades stay the same as with red ink, except now they’ll be in green or purple ink.
What’s the big effing deal, people?!
If the educators of America, whom I trust, find that writing in green or purple or crayon or whatever makes kids more likely to read and learn from the comments, well then, I’m just going to trust the professionals whose job it is to know these things and who have experience with these things to it their way.
Once again, as long as the kids are learning, WHO CARES WHAT COLOR INK THE CORRECTIONS ARE IN? This is NOT about grade inflation. This is NOT about passing everyone in class. This is NOT about everybody feeling good about themselves and NOT about removing constructive criticsm from teacher’s remarks. It’s about a color.
Some teachers have had a better response with grading kids’ papers with a different color ink, let them do their friggin’ jobs.
Not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that self-esteem is all about how many others will benefit? If that’s so, then I can’t get on board with that. That would be like saying that the rich automatically have a greater potential for self-esteem than the poor, because they have greater influence.
And no, breathing is no great accomplishment, but being born entitles you to persue just as much happiness as anyone else.
Yes, that’s exactly the point. WHO CARES? That’s why this whole “purple” thing is silly.
I don’t see any indication in the article that there is any evidence to suggest that they are getting a better response. Just some nonsense from “color psychologists” (whatever the hell THAT is) that red is “aggressive”. :rolleyes:
I think that many people on this board subscribe to the notions that OxyMoron does because they can afford to. They live in relative luxury, they are accomplished, and they are the ones who are rewarded by a system that gives self-esteem based on accomplishments.
I have also been on the losing end of that system. In school, I was told I was “bright, but not living up to my potential”. It might have helped if someone had shown me how to do that. I had no idea. And as a child, I don’t see how I could have been expected to just know. I was a bit of a social misfit, and was repeatedly told that it was my fault for “not trying hard enough to fit in” and that I “should know better”. It was a whammy on my self-esteem that I’m still recovering from.
Then, in high school, I had Mr. Thorn. Mr Thorn was brilliant and passionate and funny. He showed me to live up to my potential, he expected it of me, and I did it. He challenged me without intimidating me, and now that I’ve typed that, I think that some people in this thread are confusing challenge with intimidation. Challenge is; “I am asking you to do this because I know you can, and when you’ve done it, you’ll know you can too.” Intimidation is: “You will do this or else.”
Well, red is an agressive color and we are socially conditioned to have certain responses when we see the color red. Ask any artist.
But this issue is beside the point. I do not want to argue the validity of color psychology.
The point is it’s the educator’s choice which color ink to grade in. They prefer purple. Maybe it is for psychological reasons. Maybe they just prefer purple. Maybe they think it’s passe. The article offered one reason because in trend pieces (which this is), the author needs to examine the impetus behind the trend.
Y’all are reading WAY too much into this. It’s a simple business trend piece. Teachers don’t like red corrective ink, for whatever reasons, so they’ve gone to a different color. Simple.
Yeah, but I think even you are missing the point. Or more likely, we haven’t settled on a definition. I’m sure if you ask 10 people you’ll get 12 answers. Based on all of the reading I’ve done on the subject, I’ve come up with a definition that I find satisfying and useful:
Self-esteem is the making the commitment to treat yourself in the best way possible.
Yes, that is everyone’s birthright.
Does Charles Manson deserve self-esteem? Many here would say no. But does he deserve to treat himself in the best way possible? If what that means is atoning for what he’s done and making reparations to those he’s harmed, then yes, he deserves it. As much as anyone.
“Commitment to treat yourself in the best way possible?” I always suspected the self-esteem movement of solipsism, but I never expected it to be quite so naked.
I suspect may have made some incorrect assumptions about me. Our histories are probably roughly equal, and I suspect those histories characterize many of the people on this board. But what is good for you or for me or many of the people on this board is irrelevant. That we may have spent goodly portions of our lives being the eggs from which omelettes are made is unfortunate, but when the subject is large social policy we have to look at large social effects. And a focus on self-esteem, however defined, ignores the brute reality that feeling bad about oneself is the most (and often only) effective disincentive human beings have from antisocial behavior. It can be misused. But it must never be abandoned, and that’s what the self-esteem movement threatens to do.
It also ignores the way learning tends to happen. True learning is usually uncomfortable - often highly so, when embarrassment is how you find out that it’s unwise to come to class unprepared. For example, a law-school classmate of mine was utterly humiliated in the first week, when our notoriously Kingsfieldian* professor ground her to dust. Classmate wound up in tears - but ended up becoming one of the most effective oral argument presenters in school. She grew a spine, but quick. Not a bad lesson to learn, and all the gentleness in the world won’t get the same effect.
I agree that it’s possible to have one’s self-esteemed too wrapped up in achievement, or the lack thereof. But it should be wrapped up in actions, and if nothing else that can including how we behave toward one another.
I was going to insist that you actually read my post, but I see I cocked up and chopped off the end bit, which was supposed to read “Of course, I realise the original article is most likely a bit of filler on a slow news day, and not to be taken too seriously.”
That said, what I was complaining about (in the more general sense) is something I see as a genuine problem, and it’s not something I’m pulling out of my arse, I’ve witnessed it first hand, as in the example I gave. I completely agree that the choice of colour for marking is pretty innocuous as these things go, and is unlikely to have any real effect whatsoever in either direction. I just tend to think that if a child is worrying about the number of mistakes they’re making, the logical approach is not to try and make them seem less important. The article (if, again, it is to be taken seriously) has at least a couple of quotes from teachers who think red is inappropriate; they, at least, think it’s about making mistakes seem less bad, and explicitly said so.
I agree, by far the most likely thing is that PaperMate saw an opportunity for a free puff piece, phoned a friend, and the Boston Globe trotted out a few rent-a-quotes. If someone wants to grade in purple because they like it, that’s more than fine with me. But if they’re doing it out of concern that their pupils will be upset by red ink, then it seems to me that there are about a million things on which they could better expend their effort. All I’m saying is that I’ve seen at least one situation where such concern was taken too far, and seriously set back my brother’s education.
[QUOTE= In school, I was told I was “bright, but not living up to my potential”. It might have helped if someone had shown me how to do that. I had no idea. ."[/QUOTE]
I used to hear that all the time too. Funny. In grade school and high school I carried an average in the mid to high 90 percent range but somehow I was not fulfilling some vague, undefined potential. Maybe they were just pissed that the class clown was getting good grades. Personally, I thought it was funny as all get out. It’s even funnier now, since I probably make twice as much a year as they did, even factoring in the cost of living index.
But seriously, nobody can make you happy. You have to make yourself happy. Nobody can give you self esteem. You give it to yourself. If it tied to your amazing accomplishments, fine. If it is based on how incredibly good looking you are, fine. BUT you give happiness and esteem to yourself. If you need to get it somehow from others, you will always be chasing a carrot on a stick.
Wow, OxyMoron, you have some strange ideas about what self-esteem means.
Solipsism? Self-esteem is, oddly enough, how one esteems one’s self. Hence the name. If it was about how one esteems others, I suspect it would instead be called other-esteem.
Self-esteem is predicated on the idea that you won’t give and get respect to and from others until you first respect yourself.
It does not mean being selfish.
It does not mean abdicating responsibilities towards others.
It does not mean big ego.
And it does not mean solipsism.
What does it mean?
It means that you have as much right to be happy as anyone else.
It means that you do not have to be a doormat.
It means that you take care of yourself, physically and emotionally.
It means that you do not depend on others for your emotional state.
It means that you do not need to tear down others to feel better about yourself.
And it means that you like yourself enough to take responsibility for all of the above.
I cannot possibly see how anyone would think of it as a bad thing, unless of course you intend to manipulate people.
And that’s precisely what’s wrong with it. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
Agreed. But what must you do to get that respect? See, this is where it rather falls apart.
But why doesn’t it? You assert that self-esteem doesn’t mean any of these things, but there’s nothing about the concept (at least as you’ve articlulated it) that would prevent any of these outcomes.
But depending on what action by you?
All very well and good, and perfectly admirable, but I still don’t get what the necessary, logical connection is between any of them and this (rather nebulous-seeming) concept you’re calling self-esteem.
Ah. And this is the central downfall - one’s emotional state should depend on others, because if it doesn’t, what you’re describing is an ego whose only limits are those that are self-imposed–and which might just as easily be self-abandoned at any moment.
Fine, fine, but again, this result doesn’t necessarily follow from your formulation.
What on earth does “liking yourself” have to do with responsibility?
Psychologists have found that children that grow up in safe and loving homes tend to grow up with better self-esteem. So you may not be able to give it, but you can influence it. For good or for ill. And the path to self-esteem can be taught. Of course, the student has to want to learn. This is often the hard part.
If you get your self-esteem from others, it’s not really “self” esteem, is it?
If you get your esteem from your accomplishments or your good looks or your artificial giant juggies, is it really self-esteem? This may be my own personal thing, but I consider it to be more transendental than material attributes. If you love yourself, and then you have a horribly disfiguring accident, will you still love yourself? The answer will determine whether your self-esteem is genuine or superficial.
This poor horse is half-way to glue, but I will reiterate - what limits does self-esteem have if it doesn’t depend on others? Let’s assume that you’re with the 99.99 percent of us, and have little opportunity to achieve anything more lasting than your children. Achievement has the virtue of objective criteria - either you achieve or you don’t. But if like most of us, you must resort to something squishier, such as the content of your character - well, how do you calculate in any meaningful way without referencing others’ opinions?