A narcissistic generation?

[DanaC]

I put this here, because it's about educating the younglings.

Some time ago, possibly a couple of years, I recall a discussion in the Cellar in which people posited that schools were teaching children that failure was not an option: everybody succeeds. Essentially it was suggested that with this attitude, no child is ever allowed to be last, to fail a test, to be bad at stuff. The emphasis on boosting self-confidence had swung the pendulum too far and created an atmosphere in which kids felt they were entitled to success almost regardless of effort or ability.

I was unconvinced at the time. I felt this was a very negative slant on something that might actually be positive: the removal of intense levels of contest and competition between kids and the fostering of an ethos in which all are valuable, all are contributing.


This morning I read an interesting article on BBCNews, which basically suggests that the above phenonenon is starting to become apparent in our schools. It attributes the philosophy behind it to American teaching ideas which we have apparently adopted here. It suggests that the result is narcissitic children with a sense of entitlement.

I hadn't realised that our countries had such different approaches prior to this. I thought that what was being described in our earlier discussions, was something like what I'd seen in my own country. but viewed negatively. Actually, we'd been doing things differently and hadnt yet felt the full effects of these changes in educational theory and practice.

Anyway, here's the article. I'd be interested to hear if it tallies at all with observations of the American system.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7943906.stm