Working Hard Improves Children’s Self Esteem
By Rizwana Khan
Credential Multiple Subject from CSUN
In Pakistan students two decades ago would play outside and go the local shops. But nowadays because of the overcrowding and Corona pandemic children are not allowed to go out unaccompanied because of insecurities and not enough open spaces.
Hakim played card games with his friends. He counted numbers and developed interest in manipulative. Further his mother sent him daily to the local store around the corner with some money to buy things for her. Thus he was confidently able to calculate the numbers in the transaction, easily. He lived in a joint family with grandparents. As his both parents worked the grandparents were able to help him with his assignments as needed.
On the other hand Hakim’s friend stayed in the house watching television and a tutor came in to teach him. He was not let out of the house because of a very busy street in front of their house. He never played games because his mother said that it was waste of time and had no friends he could visit after school. As he was seven years old yet he couldn’t count the numbers.
At school, the irritated teachers dictated the answers to the students, especially the slow learners who would take a long time to solve the solutions and the time was of essence. As the curriculum was packed with too many subjects but not with enough time, the teachers were under the pressure to finish their chapters assigned by their syllabus. So when the students who took too long, the teachers gave them a good student’s notes to copy.
The students, especially the ones with slower speed learnt this constant state of helplessness. Their self-belief being very low they, always, waited for their teacher to tell them what to do at every step or a class fellow to finish their work so that they could copy their work.
As we have seen, many self-beliefs are reciprocally related to achievement—each affects the other (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998;Pinxten et al., 2010).
A good example of the work assessed by the teachers In the Covid 19 pandemic shows the discrepancy between the checking of the Cambridge and the actual assessment of the schools. The students in UK protested and other parts of the world also participated. The teachers had aggregated the scores over the year of Covid 19. The final exams were basically the teacher’s assessment. Thus the schools assessment differed from the Cambridge in A and O levels exams and the students didn’t like their teachers’ assessments.
When the tests were taken, the students who never completed their assignments themselves without the help of the tutors, tend to have low self esteem. Always they copied the work or the tutors gave them the answers. The self-esteem can be instilled by getting better in what they do independently. If they get a good score in the weekly tests they felt a positive attitude toward themselves. Their h self-belief improves with hard work and achieves success in the class.
