One of the most disturbing factors I found as a teacher was the low self-esteem of my students. It was so prevalent it had to be remedied before progress in learning could be measured. Self-esteem is the reputation you have with yourself. Many factors play into this. A negative attitude can be established in the home. Example: while I worked in the house suspension program at a middle school, I had a girl often sent to my room. I called these repeaters frequent flyers. She seemed very unhappy and often belligerent and frustrated. I read an essay she had written for her class and was stunned to see her flawless work. I wasn’t expecting that. I mentioned how great it was and asked why she hadn’t turned it int. She said, “My mom told me that I’m stupid.” I could not convince her otherwise.

Another example comes from the school epidemic of bullying. Kids who don’t have self confidence are often easy targets. They believe the negative comments from their peers even though the critique is not valid. A person may be ridiculed because of their weight when realistically they aren’t overweight. If they had a positive self-image, they would ignore such dialog.

There are even staff members who hurt the reputations of kids. I had a student who told me his teacher would fail him no matter what he did. She told him he was irresponsible, I handled this by giving him a lot of responsibility. “Matt, will you do a bulletin board for the class on snakes?” He looked at me very confused, as if I had the wrong person. I was a long-term substitute teacher, and I didn’t know when this teacher would return. He was shocked that I had asked him to do this project. He accomplished the task, and his work was exceptional. His self-esteem improved, and so did his grades. When he learned his regular classroom teacher was returning, he tore down the display. When I asked why, he said, “She’ll just fail me anyway.”

I started my year by praising my students. I used positive reinforcement whenever I could find an opportunity to do so. I high-fived them at the door and encouraged them when they left. I told them, “There are no failures in this room and don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are.”

I had business cards printed for each student. They could write their names on the cards, and I told them to pass the cards out. The idea is that if one has a business card, he or she must be important. The transformation was taking place, so I had sweatpants and shirts made with the name of our class printed on them. I gave the students nicknames based on any unusual quirks they might have. This makes a kid feel special. Every Thursday we wore our drama jerseys. We were becoming a unit and a family. The class was encouraged to start doing better in their other subjects. I would ask to see their progress reports, and I’d talk to their other teachers. It was now onto the next step: building a top-notch theater department.