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Promoting Self-Esteem in Students

By Kimberly O. McManus, Montgomery College

I have had the opportunity to work with students on many levels. I have taught students with various disabilities, students who were adjudicated, K-12 level students, and college/university students. What I have gained from my experience is that students tend to work harder and learn more when their self-esteem is promoted.

In order to promote a student’s self-esteem, we as teachers/instructors must continue to show how much we care. In our caring, we find out what interests the student. We must also take the opportunity to share our interests as well. Students, in turn, begin to care about us as individuals whom they look up to because they realize we are there to foster not only academic growth but them as persons.

We must also continue to listen. Unfortunately, in today’s world, we have a lot of students who come from broken homes or from homes where their parents are uninvolved in their lives. Many students don’t have someone to listen to them or to even ask how their day was at school. As it is well noted, families don’t even share meals at the kitchen table any more. As a result, we have to allow opportunities in class for students to engross in positive conversation with us and with their peers. Sometimes, it’s okay to allow students to “talk off the topic” because these presenting issues tend to be at the forefront of their minds. When students are allowed the opportunity to release frustrations in a positive way, they then can have time to allow learning to take place.

We, as educators, should also allow students to engross themselves in areas that will promote or foster successful community-minded individuals. By providing after-school activities, art, athletic, and music programs, students begin to develop into the adults who will work to achieve a common goal and not go against it. Let’s promote students’ ideas by helping them to develop them and by showing them how what interests them can make for successful topics for class assignments as well as possible career interests. The more students realize that we care about their interests, the more their minds will grow, which eventually promotes self-esteem. There’s nothing quite like watching a student realize that he or she can do something, do it well, and feel good about him/herself in the process.

Questions or comments? Contact the author at Kimberly.McManus@montgomerycollege.edu.

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