Our self-esteem is the confidence we have in our personal worth and different abilities. Self esteem is something we all have, but different people have different levels of it; some people may be lacking in it, and others may have a healthy amount of it.

Having a good positive balance of self esteem is essential as a teacher. We need to have it in order for it to rub off on those around us, especially our pupils. It is also important to us as individuals – we need to be confident in ourselves as well as our teaching.

A person with a healthy self esteem is likely to excel in more things, as they will not have any negative feelings towards their ability. These people are also more likely to pull through difficult times in life easier, or even something as small as trying and conquering something they are not yet competent at.

Someone with a low self esteem will typically, whether they realise it or not, be a very negative person. This may, however, only be towards themselves, as esteem does predominantly affect a person’s own self worth.

Susan Harter measured self esteem in children through asking two different questions:

• What do you think you should be like? 
• What do you actually see yourself to be?

By asking these two questions, she could tell whether or not the children believed they were living up to their own expectations. She came to the conclusion that if they saw themselves as what they thought they should be like – they had a high self esteem. If they did not, there is a need for a support system around them in the form of peers, parents, and us, their teachers.

However, her method is not completely beneficial as there are things she has not accounted for. Just because a child has a loving supportive family surrounding them does not automatically mean they will have a high self esteem. We have no idea, initially, of the pressures said family may be putting on their child to do well. There is also the fact that she states a child with no peer support will have a low self esteem. This is completely not true. Some children thrive being on their own and may just have different ideas of socialising from their peers. Obviously as teachers we need to ensure these children join in, but if a child wants to sit and draw during their free time, I do not feel there is a need to force them into things such as football.

As teachers, we need to ensure the way we communicate with our classes affects our pupil’s self esteem. By simply giving everyone the same feedback to their answer in front of everyone we are not identifying who is excelling and who is necessarily wrong. It is important as children pick up on the language we use. Wall (2004) interviewed some children on how they felt within their class setting. One child responded, “Well if everybody’s got their hand up, he normally first chooses the top two tables… I think it’s because he knows that they will probably get the answer right first time…” It is so important from this didacHtic way of teaching, the way it is mainly teacher focused and is based on the telling of right or wrong answers, that these pupils are getting a good sense of their worth within the classroom. These children who are never getting asked questions, or who are getting them wrong are having their self-esteem knocked down tremendously. It is important that we, as student teachers should learn from things like this, and ensure we give consideration to the self esteem of those within our classroom. We need to identify who needs a little confidence boost, and perhaps a bit more support.

But how do we do this? How do we identify the child’s level of self esteem? 

Many people mask their self esteem through an air of false confidence. Children are however not as good at this. A child will generally show signs of defeat much sooner. Through a child’s early childhood, they have a high self esteem; as they have not begun comparing themselves to others and have not had anything to knock them back. When growing throughout their development, they begin to gain a greater sense of self-awareness; and when they are around the age of 7/8 their self-esteem becomes more defined.

As a teacher, we should ensure each child’s goals are specific to them; and most importantly – reasonable. However, they should not be allowed to succeed at everything, they need to experience failure in some way shape or form. If they don’t, it will hit them harder in later life. We should match their work to their ability, give them positive praise, and most importantly, be a role model. As this model, we should ensure we model failure to them. If they see it is ok for us to fail at things we are working towards (and still continue trying) – they too will adopt this attitude.

So yes, we can identify a child’s self esteem. We will be with them for hours on end five days a week, they will not be able to hide all that time. Their true characteristics will be visible to us. We should ensure we give them the chance to have a voice, and also ensure they are involved in their own learning journey; in order to keep up their self-worth and most importantly become confident learners.