The Chicago Tribune thinks that all of our parents hugged us too much.
At least that’s what I gather from a story they ran over the weekendwarning of the dangers of “high teen self-esteem.” They cite a whole slew of graduate students, professors and parents who seem to think that the next generation of adults has been spoiled rotten by the praise of adults.
They seem to think that little Johnny Suburb has been told his whole life he’s a different kind of learner-even though he’s just plain country dumb, and maybe the sooner the world forces that through his molasses-thick head, the better.
Apparently this resonated with some folks, because it remained the most viewed article on the Trib’s website as late as Tuesday. Online commenters blamed pillow-soft parenting, daycare-cuddly school systems, and widespread documented grade inflation.
The article goes on to quote students and adults from Elmhurst, Deerfield and Wheaton-all suburbs leaning more or less toward the swanky side. As a product of the northwest ‘burbs myself, I can attest that the modern suburban teen can sometimes be insufferably privileged, intolerably sensitive, and show the toughness of a bowl of Jell-O in the workplace.
But maybe those kids up in Deerfield should have some pretty high self-esteem-after all, the adults in their town seem to have invested in them. Deerfield School District 109 managed to have 90 percent of its third through eighth graders meet or exceed the standards of the state-mandated ISAT test of reading, math and science in 2009. The Chicago Public Schools hovered just under 70 percent.
The kids in those towns think they’ll change the world because they’ve been prepared to do it. They’ve received a high-quality education in state-of-the-art classrooms equipped with computers, good textbooks, and stable home situations.
Meanwhile CPS students had to pick up the paper on Tuesday and read about how the district would lose 226 teachers due to a budget crunch, including some with years of experience and special certifications. That’s if they can read it at all-a nonprofit called Literacy Chicago estimates that 53 percent of Chicago adults have low or limited literacy skills.
Chicago schools will never be like those in Deerfield, a district with resources that CPS principals could only dream about. But if we’re going to talk about the self-esteem of my generation, let’s not forget the portion of it that has been left behind as education becomes more and more important.
For every student clawing for A’s to fill out his Harvard application, there’s many more who have to make do in budget-strapped classes of 38 with substandard teaching. And there is no magic source of revenue to pay for adequate classrooms or good teachers to fill them. For these students, a little faith in themselves-especially the kind hammered in by a loving parent or dedicated teacher-might be the only way to make it through a broken school system.
The Tribune confuses self-esteem with a sense of entitlement, to which no teen has a right. But the average CPS student is up against enough-don’t try and take her self-esteem too. If most of my generation can push through high school and graduate with high self-esteem in tact, it won’t be a crisis of entitlement. It’ll be a miracle.
Summer Northwestern columnist and Weinberg senior Mike Carson can be reached at [email protected].
