2025 Back-To-School Virtual Conference: Authentic Assessment Approaches for All Students

close

Self-esteem drives school performance

I want to share a story of how the role of self-esteem was so apparent when I went out to a rural district recently to evaluate a bilingual pre-Kindergarten student.  He spent a solid 100 minutes with me working hard and doing great work.  He clearly had an impairment in the areas of speech production and expressive language but he worked hard and got his point across. His receptive language skills were fully intact.

After our evaluation session I walked him back to his class and his classmates were all lining up to get ready to go home after their morning class.  When I neared his teacher I said, “He worked really hard today and did a great job.”

She responded by saying, “He doesn’t know anything.”  She said it in a loud voice in front of him and all of his peers.  “He doesn’t know anything.”

Imagine for a moment how that student must have felt hearing that.  His head dropped, his shoulders slumped.  His self-esteem took a big hit.self-esteem

Wow.  I was taken aback.  My goal at that point was to mitigate the damages and I told the teacher I would come back and talk to her after her students had gone home.  I then walked up to my student, kneeled down to be eye-to-eye with him and said, “YOU did a great job today.  Thank you for showing me all of the awesome things you know. Thank you for sharing stories with me. I had fun.”  I gave him a high five and went on my way to share my concerns with the school counselor.

Self-esteem and the impact of the teacher-student relationship

Now, I want to share some important research with you.  In Eric Jenson’s (2009) book Teaching with Poverty in Mind, he summarizes some great research studies that explore self-esteem and the impact of the teacher-student relationship.

One study found that self-esteem and school engagement were among the most important factors keeping kids in school (Finn & Achilles, 1999).

So that brings us to the question… what builds self-esteem?

Jenson writes, “…teacher beliefs and assumptions play a big part in the outcome, especially for students subjected to low expectations.

self-esteemAnother studied shared,

“When educators believe students are competent, students tend to perform better; conversely, when educators believe students have deficits, students tend to peform more poorly.” (Johns, Schmader & Martens, 2005)

There is evidence that students of teachers who have high expectations for them and develop strong relationships with them are more optimistic about their academics, earn higher GPAs, experience better peer relationships, and are more likely to give emotional support to classmates and friends.

As educators, our words matter.

self-esteemTell your students what you admire about them.

Give them a high five.

Tell them they did a great job.

Encourage them.

Students, YOU CAN DO THIS!

And educators, you can do this too.

Here’s a link to Rick Lavoie’s 20 Tips to Build Self-Esteem

Click here for a course on Effective Educational Strategies That Take Poverty into Consideration

Austin-based Speech Language Pathologists
The Bilinguistics Team, an internationally recognized group of speech-language pathologists, collaborates to share insights from their extensive experience in clinics and schools. Specializing in bilingualism, they are dedicated to helping SLPs excel through workshops, books, and courses. Their collective expertise ensures that each article is grounded in practical knowledge and research, providing valuable resources for professionals in the field.
Shares
facebook sharing button Share
twitter sharing button Tweet
twitter sharing button LinkedIn
pinterest sharing button Pin
email sharing button Email
WordPress Lightbox