I wonder, what did those conducting the study you’ve cited mean by “self esteem”? Is it the bloated, false sense of self-grandiosity that permeates popular culture today? The chest-thumping, “there is no ‘I’ in team but there is ‘M’ and ‘E’, or, as one tee shirt I saw bluntly stated, “It IS all about me!”?
I remember a wise person saying once, “Self esteem comes from setting and achieving personal goals and challenges. In the classroom, the only worthwhile goal, from which esteem could possibly be derived, is mastery or course content/high achievement levels/high grades. Therefore, that study wouldn’t be measuring esteem (according to the quote I’ve cited above), but ego. Also, therefore, the teachers who have denied these students the opportunity to achieve on their own have, not only deprived them any chance of developing self-esteem, they have also perverted the students’ sense of what true self-esteem is and how it is derived. This will simply ensure we continue to see the furtherance of self-centeredness in our culture.
To paraphrase Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, “Know this that in the last days men will be lovers of themselves...”
Self-Esteem is just an image of what Self-Worth actually is.
When you accomplish something, it is much better than feeling good about trying.
They rated them on how they view themselves. The worse they were academically, the better they saw themselves.