Do you feel you are always a failure? Do you feel you cannot do it? Well, I guess you are suffering from a low self-esteem. Why not try to read some of the articles we provided here just for you or try to watch the videos on how to overcome negative thoughts that could lead you to frustrations. Remember, it’s not too late. Hope springs eternal!
Mariely Garcia, a senior at the Richard R. Green High School of Teaching, said she is tired of watching her classmates underestimate their self-worth.
“We’re all dreamers and we all want to do things but we don’t do them because we’re scared of what people think,” she said. “We sit back and we don’t talk in class and we don’t express ourselves. We don’t go to that art class because it’s ‘uncool.’”
A little over year ago, Garcia started a Tumblr page called Perfectly Made, devoted to tackling self-esteem issues among her fellow teenagers. She said she was determined to transform the page from a blog to a movement, and on April 13 launched the Perfect Revolution with the help of her classmates and the organization The Future Project.
Hundreds of high school students showed up to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza that day for a rally, and Garcia shared this video to show scenes from the day.
Garcia cited some numbers that alarmed her: Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people; tens of thousands of students nationwide stay home from school each day because of bullying; and 80 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
She said she hopes to one day turn Perfectly Made into a non-profit organization. For now, she is concentrating on attending Bowdoin College in the fall.
Garcia was previously featured in a WNYC story about low-income students applying to top colleges.
Yasmeen Khan is a producer at WNYC. Follow her on Twitter @yasmeenkhan
May 12th, 2013 By Jon Schwartz Article from http://www.edsource.org/
When I tell people I use the performing arts to teach my second grade students, they often ask, “You’re responsible for teaching kids academics. How do you find the time for that?”
Guess what? For the first 13 years of teaching, I too viewed the performing arts as an unaffordable luxury, if not a waste of precious instructional time. My job was to teach academics by filling my students with information. If the school wanted my students to sing, they’d give them more than 30 minutes a week with the district’s music teacher. We had real work to do!
Only last year, when I started bringing music into my classroom, did I realize that rather than being a diversion, the performing arts can be a tool to unify the different strands of academic learning into a cohesive theme that students can easily digest and eagerly embrace while enhancing learning. Direct and explicit instruction and standard/basal texts are still cornerstones of our class, but we’ve made time for content-rich music and other visual and performing arts. By using them as thematic teaching tools, we’re not squandering learning opportunities, we’re enhancing, enriching and creating them.
It’s ironic that many of us adults have come to view the performing arts as an inefficient use of class time. The California State Standards actually call for their implementation, and point to their importance in providing a balanced curriculum.
When the right material is used – academically and culturally rich songs, music, plays, theater – standards-rich content can be presented to students in a meaningful way that boosts engagement and retention. In my experience, kids will dive into the curriculum, and even double down on more challenging material, if it’s participatory and delivered in ways they can process and enjoy.
For example, in my second grade class, we use songs to learn the full range of language arts skills: When I first brought in Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” and “Let it Rock,” we used the songs to teach reading skills, slowly pointing and tracking to each word. Once we gained a level of fluency and familiarity with the text, we discussed the meaning of Berry’s phrases and imagery. Small passages took on great significance and propelled us into impassioned research – so much so that, at times, the students didn’t want to go to recess. I started getting goosebumps!
For example, Berry’s phrase “straddled that Greyhound” in “Promised Land” helped us learn about the use of literal versus figurative language. With some questioning, I found that the kids had no idea what the song meant. Part of this was cultural (most of my students are English learners), and part of it was due to the fact that the period the song refers to – all that rich Americana – is all but lost to many in our younger generations. Many of these kids have grown up on SpongeBob and video games, and have been handed a history-poor curriculum geared to tests that don’t assess history knowledge in primary grades.
We put our songbooks down, raced back to our seats, flicked off the lights and fired up the projector and Googled each word in Berry’s phrase. When they saw the connections between greyhounds as a species of dog, the company’s strategic use of that term as a brand, how and why the company’s logo and design/construction of their buses have changed over the decades, the literal definition of straddling, and studied the artful way Berry used “straddling” in the song, the lesson took on tremendous significance.
I’d been listening to the song for 30 years, but the power of the words never registered with me until my students and I delved into them together. The kids were on the edge of their seats, and I’ve never felt more alive as a teacher.
Using the song as historical context, we addressed the concepts of westward expansion and the history of the Transcontinental Railroad. Berry’s words in “Let It Rock”: “Working on the railroad with a steel driving hammer,” naturally led to researching folktales and heroes that led us to historical photos of entire hillsides covered with hundreds of mud-caked workers holding mostly hand tools.
The cultural composition of the workers depicted in the historic photo aroused a great deal of curiosity, and even disbelief. Many of the students had envisioned that everyone in the “Old Days” would look like the Lone Ranger or Pecos Bill and were astonished to see Chinese workers. Using language the kids could understand, we used the class’s reactions to the photos as a launching point for talking about stereotypes, reality and preconceptions.
This far-reaching academic discussion, from phonics to folktales, all emanated from portions of classic American songs. Who would have thought?
As you can see in the video, once we researched the early and modern trains and buses, students created hand-drawn art related to our songs, scanned it into the computer, edited it in Photoshop, and uploaded it to their personal anonymous blogs. The students were tasked with recreating, through their own drawings, a detailed photograph of a 1950s era Greyhound bus. This challenging assignment enabled us to address the state’s Grade 2 Visual Arts Standard 2.3 (Depict the illusion of depth (space) in a work of art, using overlapping shapes, relative size, and placement within the picture).
Recently, I’ve started to compose original songs for our class. I can tailor the songs to the student’s academic and social needs, and I’ve found a whole new side of me that I never knew existed.
We constantly practice and refine our vocal delivery of the song’s text, and the imposed phrasings, opportunities to learn through peer modeling, movement, and visual and musical content meet the needs of second language learners. More advanced students are challenged to assume leadership roles and tap their creativity in choreographing dance moves and shaping our performing unit.
We don’t have much time to spend teaching students how to play instruments, but I wanted the kids to be able to do more than sing and dance to my guitar playing, so decided to try plastic kazoos. What a miracle! They’re like junior saxophones without the complex fingerings, and together, they make up our band’s horn section. Kazoos are inexpensive, washable, and easy to learn.
For teachers who want to take it to the next level, a performance (for parents, other students or even the public) provides students with a summative, culminating event where they can apply what they’ve learned, take ownership of the content and work, and build confidence and self esteem. Our class band, “Kids Like Blues Band,” has played for thousands of people at street fairs, talent shows, amusement parks and on live TV, and as a teacher I’ve seen the student collaboration, teamwork and cooperation that goes into the performance’s success.
Another big “aha!” moment occurred for me last year when we first started using music as a teaching tool. I found one of my reluctant readers, Jorge, poring over one of the pieces in our songbook during recess. Of my 30 students, he was the one I’d least expect to be working when it wasn’t required. I was doubly floored when I noticed he’d picked one of the more difficult songs to read – something well beyond his assessed reading level – and he was plowing through the words with a doggedness and determination I’d not seen before.
This English learner wasn’t attracted by the texts we’d used in class, but by a song rich in historical content – one that brought to life subjects such as the Industrial Revolution, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the evolution of transportation, westward migration, and immigration. He was learning about our country – his country – and he couldn’t get enough of it.
Our work with the songs was making the history of the United States come alive for him. More than ever before, I felt I was realizing one of the goals outlined in the introduction to the CA State Standards, which call for us to “enable the human spirit to be enriched, foster responsible citizenship, and preserve the collective memory of a nation.”
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Jon Schwartz has taught grades 1-6 in California public schools since 1997 and has credentials in general and special education. He has two educational websites that show his work integrating the performing arts (http://kidslikeblues.org) and technology (http://kidslikeblogs.org) into the classroom. His work has been featured by the US Dept. of Education and the California Association for the Gifted, and he received a “Tech Hero of 2011 Award” from the California State Senate.
By Kay Campbell | kcampbell@al.com on May 09, 2013 at 10:48 AM, updated May 10, 2013 at 7:01 AM Article from http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013/05/self-esteem_lifepoints.html
How much humility is too much? Counselor and minister Mark Beaird offers a Bible-based assessment of healthy and holy humility. (Kay Campbell / KCampbell@al.com)
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Most people of faith view the personality trait of humility as one of the supreme goals of living as a believer.
Mark Beaird, a Huntsville-based pastor for many years who now is a licensed counselor, warns that too much of a good thing, even humility, is not the goal.
The goal? A balanced, honest self-awareness that leads to more respect, both of self and of others.
Here's how he puts it--
The Need for Self-Esteem
By Mark Beaird
MB@alabamaCounselingandConsulting.com
While many have seen the need and sought for greater self-esteem, too many were surprised to find their pursuit not well received by others -- and sometimes with a faith-based condemnation. For some reason, some have the idea that building one’s self-esteem will lead to that person becoming egotistical or arrogant or having an “inflated ego.”
But low self-esteem should not be confused with humility. It is not the same. Low self-esteem is the devaluing of ourselves in our eyes and often leads to accepting mistreatment by others. Low self-esteem is often helps create emotional upset, relational difficulties, poor decision-making, negativity and hopelessness. Low self-esteem decreases our self-respect and self-worth.
Humility, on the other hand, is about being unassuming or modest. Good self-esteem has a good balance to it. It is based on an accurate estimation of one’s worth as a person—a worth that everyone possesses.
This idea of balance is an idea even promoted in the Bible. Paul writes, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” (Romans 12:3, NIV).
There is no caution given against thinking well of one’s self as long as it is a balanced and accurate estimation. This is something we must find for ourselves because others sometimes devalue us or overvalue us. Depending on others to determine one’s worth or set one’s level of self-esteem will only result in an emotional roller-coaster ride.
People who frown on others for wanting to build self-esteem might be people who don’t understand what it is that is being accomplished. In other cases they might be those who want to control us or who want us to believe their mistreatment is what we deserve.
The fact is that good self-esteem leads to one being more secure, having better relationships, being more forgiving, having a positive outlook and having more empathy for others.
"Good self-esteem leads to being more secure, better relationships, being more forgiving, having a positive outlook and more empathy for others"
A study I read recently showed that people with healthy self-esteem even exercise better judgment in their behavior. It’s true! People who see themselves in a positive light are more prone to make decisions that will reflect well on them, while people with low self-esteem are often more careless or fatalistic about their choices. The fact that a decision might reflect badly on the person with low self-esteem doesn’t mean as much if that person already sees themselves in a bad light.
Aren’t sure if your self-esteem is too high or too low? A competent professional counselor can be consulted, or one can learn more about the self-esteem by reading articles posted on good websites like: www.MayoClinic.com or www.PsychCentral.com.
Just remember, there is certainly nothing wrong with improving one’s outlook on one’s self or on one’s life—it’s all about achieving balance. Don’t be worried about ending up with an inflated ego. In my experience, there will always be someone around who is willing to let the air out of your ego if it gets too big. Let your focus be on keeping it properly inflated.
Mark Beaird is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) with the faith-based Alabama Counseling and Consulting Center, 600 Whitesport Drive in Huntsville. Also a freelance writer, he's been a minister and pastor for more than 25 years. Email:MB@AlabamaCounselingandConsulting.com
"LifePoints" and Clergy Column feature inspiration and instruction from faith and thought leaders and writers. To submit a column for this feature from Huntsville-area writers, send to KCampbell@al.com.
Kay Campbell | kcampbell@al.com on May 09, 2013 at 10:48 AM, updated May 10, 2013 at 7:01 AM Article from http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013/05/self-esteem_lifepoints.html
