In the last twenty years, as educators in the United States have watched students’ test scores plummet and their desire to learn decline, they have tried to find ways to reverse those trends. One popular theory states that the best way to improve children’s ability is to puff up their self-esteem. When educators observed that high achievers possessed confidence, they theorized that if they simply built self-esteem, competence would follow. But that approach has backfired on them. Researchers have found that simply building children’s egos breeds many negative traits: indifference to
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