Operating within a school environment that emphasises on the measurable student success
Discuss about the Global Self-Esteem And Self-Efficacy Correlates.
The issue of self-esteem has been a growing concern in many schools. A number of scholars have explored the concept of self-esteem and concluded that it is a crucial aspect of children’s overall development. Deurzen (2012) defines self-esteem as “total perception of self, which incorporates self-image, self-concept, and social concept.” Recent studies underscore the fact that self-esteem and academic achievement are intertwined (Afari et al., 2012). Students’ perceptions about themselves can influence their worlds in a positive or negative way. This paper provides an overview on how to enhance students’ self-esteem by employing applicable counselling theories and concepts. The leading principle in this study is that improving student’s self-esteem is not just for enhancing their academic excellence, rather to entrench a culture of regulatory behaviour that will serve them in all aspects of their lives— even after school.
Operating within a school environment that emphasises on the measurable student success requires a counselling approach that focuses on both student’s identity and self-worth According to Social Comparison Theory, students tend to interact with fellow students whom they perceive to have the same academic potential and self-esteem (Johnson and Johnson, 2013).
Petko (2016) defined self-esteem as a concept that vests on four building blocks: competence, virtue, power, and significance. The authors also identified belonging, generosity, independence, and mastery as the integral components of the aforementioned blocks. In order to build students’ self-esteem, counsellor must accentuate them and seek to help a student maximize them.
In order to be significant, students need to feel like they belong to the society. Some of the methods than an individual can use to obtain significance include gaining power, getting attention, and commiseration. In schools, students feel sense of belonging through social reputations, academic, and extra-curriculum activities. Acceptance into social groups improves students’ emotional health and confidence while rejection exposes them to academic difficulties. Peer rejection lead to social dissatisfaction and low self-esteem among the students. Rejected students tend to develop self-hatred.
Another block is competence— desire to succeed in a certain area. Repeated failure discourages students from becoming competent. Counsellors can help students with low self-esteem to become competent by setting small goals that are capable of achieving and instilling the art of taking responsibility. Success, no matter how small, should enhance satisfaction and self-efficacy.
The third component of the self-esteem block is power. Power refers to the desire to be independent and free from authority. Students can gain power through team playing, cooperation, and acting in selfless manner. Students with low self-esteem tend to fear and helpless, and may give up on life.
Building Blocks of Self-Esteem
Virtue is the reflection of a person’s generosity. Virtue gives one spiritual fulfilment. Unlike students with low self-esteem, those with high self-esteem are mature, generous, and caring.
ABC counselling model employs experimental initiatives as a way of initiating change among the counselees— by building a bridge between their activity and their lives (Nelson-Jones, 2013). The incorporation of activities into the concept was to demonstrate the metaphoric relationship that exists between goals of counselling and life. Proponents of ABC argue that it can influence counselee physically, educationally, spiritually, and psychologically by fostering areas of self-concept, confidence, and efficacy (Lapworth, 2012). The fundamental aim of the ABC theory is to enhance the counselee’s self-concept. This can be achieved through trust-building problem solving, and goal setting— individually or as a group. Morrison and Ruiz (2012) hold that ABC programs enable the counselee to have the ability to identify faulty thinking and increases their problem solving skills.
McHenry et al (2014) argue that ABC can be effectively applied in enhancing self-concept and self-esteem through communication, cooperation, challenge, creativity, skill development, excitement, and fun. These activities are practical in counselees’ and focusing on them provides counselees’ with springboard to improve in making decisions as well as developing competence, which subsequently enhances their self-worth.
Adlerian Theory, according to Ivey et al (2012), “provides a holistic conceptualization of personality.” The theory is underpinned on the notion that counselees’ behaviours are interwoven with their goals. Counselees’ goals are absolute reflection of their private logic that is influenced by their life experiences and their apperceptions about them. According to Henderson et al (2016), private logic has huge impact on a person’s “lifestyle and lifestyle convictions, which continue to affect counselees’ views of themselves and the goals which they base their behaviour.” Applying Adlerian ABC model can be effective in enhancing students’ self-concept, which in turn reduces stress, depression, and ability to avert delinquency.
Alfred Adlerian is considered as one of the fathers of psychology who contributed in development of how to work with children (Goldsmith, 2011). Adler proposed many ideas of improving self-esteem among the students, in order to enhance their academic performance. He introduced the theory of Four Mistaken Goals, which focus on understanding the students’ behaviour. The theory provides guideline to school counsellors on how to work with students to improve their behaviour.
The theory is entrenched on how promote self-esteem and subsequent academic achievement. Understanding students’ behaviour and exploring effective ways of improving it requires counsellors to focus on the students’ goals. According to Ivy et al (2012), students are social being and they are always seeking for sense of belonging. Since every behaviour is goal-oriented, the basic assumption is that this is “every students’ underlying goals” (Rose, 2012). To make this effective, the first step should be identification of their immediate goal by applying the Four Mistaken Goals: power, attention, revenge, and inadequacy.
Adventure-Based Counselling (ABC)
This is the first mistaken goal that most discouraged students that seek sense of belonging use. According to (Johnson and Johnson, 2013), this goal conjures up annoyance on adults. Students that exude undue attention tend to making obnoxious and loud noises or disrupting their fellow students during teaching session. In most instances, the teacher responds by recognizing the student either through scolding or by yelling at them, which is exactly what they were seeking. Under such circumstance, doing something unexpected is not is not helpful since it only gives the student his/her desired undue attention, which increases his/her bad behaviour.
Power struggle is another mistaken goal that causes anger. An example of power struggle if refusing to comply with an adults’ request, which makes beleaguers an adult makes to be tempted to punish the student. The best way to handle such situation is by being gentle to the student and trying to resist any attempt to punish him/her. The adult can employ logical consequence to help the student amend his/her behaviour, for instance, asking the student to read a passage that interests him/her. The aim of this approach is to redirect student’s negative impulse into doing a more productive activity (Pushkarama, 2017).
Retaliation, a third mistaken goal, can result to hurt feeling. In this case, the student may be violent and use physical force to hurt others or apply glue on the teacher’s phone. Although the student might cause injury or hurt other students, the most appropriate solution is to encourage the student. This is because punishing the student for the act can exacerbate the situation and elevate it beyond revenge (Gerald and Gerald, 2018).
The fourth mistaken goal, which is inadequacy, hold that the student has given up and apparently, the student’s advocator has despaired. Such student tends to fail terribly and does not attempt to do even simple tasks, for fear of challenging his/her self-esteem. The most suitable solution is by consistently encouraging the student and exercising utmost patience with the student by “setting smaller goals and achievable assignments with achievable acceptance” (Cottone, 2017). Through commitment, school counsellor can help the student to enhance his/her self-esteem and academic performance.
One of the effective ways of helping students with low self-esteem is to avoid discouraging them (Corey, 2017b). Authority figures play a critical role in the academic performance of students. The four mistaken goals are because of accumulating discouragement that students encounter. Instead of labelling the students as bad or sick, teachers should encourage them by giving them sense of accomplishment and sense of self-respect. Elements of encouragement include active listening, patience, compassion, and working collaboratively with students.
Integrating ABC Counselling With Adlerian Theory
Another way of encouraging students with low self-esteem is stress improvement. Teachers should draw a distinction between students and their behaviours. According to Corey (2017a), the leading principle in changing human behaviour should be improvement, and not perfection. Seeking perfection conjures up the spirit of superiority, which is not the ultimate goal. Perfection, if anything, will only discourage the student further. Therefore, teachers should emphasize on providing students with short-term goals that are not beyond their capability.
However, encouragement should not be mistaken with controlling or pampering (Lapworth, 2012). The process of boosting students’ self-esteem should not lead to humiliation or overprotection. Since home influences also affect students’ performance, parents should also work collaboratively with teachers to help the student. According to Rose (2012), pampering or overprotection may worsen the students’ academic performance. Considerably, over-controlling students makes them feel frustrated and helpless while under controlling them worsens their self-esteem. Adults should be careful so that their interaction with the student does not hamper their self-worth, value, or self-esteem. This can be done by embracing failure and avoiding comparison.
Another critical aspect in encouraging students with low self-esteem is social interest. Adlerian theorists defined social interest as participation, contribution, feeling acceptance, and loved and doing the same to others (Morrison and Ruiz, 2012). It is imperative that parents let children to pursue their own goals. Imposing goals to students usually lead to failure because in most cases, they do not fit the students.
Although some studies emphasize on the programs that enhance self-esteem as effective ways of improving their academic excellence and mitigating future failure, some seek alternative methods. American School Counsellor’s Association (ASCA) provides recommendations that adults should apply to improve students’ self-esteem (McHenry et al, 2014). The fundamental solution is that counsellors should ensure that the school delivery system has the capacity to support student development through counselling. ASCA provides four components of improving students’ self-esteem: guidance curriculum, responsive services, system support, and individual planning esteem (McHenry et al, 2014).
Individual planning is a preventive procedure that counsellors can apply by advising students on their career goals. Guidance curriculum emphasize on outlining goals preventive activities that can be used in both parents and students workshops. Responsive services are interventions that focus on the attitudes and behaviours of struggling students. System support is used to launch and sustain overall guidance program by using personnel and resources (McHenry et al, 2014).
According to Duru and Balkis (2017), counsellors should concentrate on learning rather than performance. This is because psychological aspects like emotional process, expressions, feelings, social interactions influence learning, and have the efficacy to facilitate or deter learning. Other ways of improving students’ self-esteem is by creating a conducive multi-ethnic environment and addressing discrimination issues.
Adlerian Concepts
SEL is used in guidance curriculum to promote high academic achievements as a gateway to improving students’ self-esteem. Corey (2017a) defines SEL as “the process through which individuals become socially and emotionally intelligent.” SEL has five major components: social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making skills, and relationship skills. Ideally, SEL provide students with opportunity to enhance their behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. Students can learn to accentuate and manage their reactions to experiences to peers and adults (Corey, 2017b). The main aim of SEL is to enhance pro-social behaviours that promote students’ psychological health. Besides increasing students’ self-esteem, SEL provides springboard for students to enhance their academic achievements and social interest.
Self-regulated learning is a fundamental component of guidance curriculum. It encourages students to improve their self-esteem by becoming architects of pursuing their goals (Cottone, 2017). Under this approach, students identify how they can utilize their strengths to improve their conditions. Self-regulated learners, according to Cottone (2017), always find a way of succeeding during difficult times. This is because they tend to be active in their own academic experience and being accountable to the outcomes of it. Self-regulating learning involves helping students to undertake planning, self-evaluation, self-monitoring, organization skills, and setting goals (Deurzen, 2012). These skills focus on social emotional learning, particularly on decision-making and self-awareness.
The school should develop a habit in which people appreciate each other, both students and the staff. This can be done by forming circle and having a facilitator who encourages peer appreciations.
According to Pushkarma (2017), students’ exposure to social contexts has far-reaching implications on their self-esteem. Therefore, to enhance self-esteem, it is incumbent to support children’s psychological development by encouraging peer interactions and relationships. One of the most threating aspect to self-esteem among students today is social media. Nelson-Jones (2013) argues that peer disapproval via social networking profile diminishes individual’s self-esteem. In another nuanced study, Petko et al (2016) finds a connection between low self-esteem and cyberbullying, particularly among the young people. Therefore, as a counsellor, there is need to address issues of cyberbullying during sessions that focus on self-esteem.
Conclusion
The paper has provided an in-depth analysis on the concept of self-esteem. Based on the recent studies, there is undeniable evidence that demonstrates a direct relationship between students’ performance and their self-efficiency. Although there numerous counselling models, the paper affords the ABC Adlerian and ABC models as the best approach to enhance students’ self-esteem. Counsellors have the capacity to influence students’ self-esteem development. Whichever approach or model the counsellor adopts, it should focus on maximizing the four building blocks of self-esteem.
References
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