Alabama pastor totally nails what’s wrong with American education and parenting

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April 6, 2015

(Video above: Tate Cockrell, Pastor of Member Care at the Church at Brook Hills, preaches on March 29, 2015)

The prevailing wisdom in education circles for decades has been that boosting students’ self-esteem will ultimately boost academic achievement. But in spite of the non-stop awards ceremonies and never ending stream of participation certificates, there is little to no evidence that education outcomes have actually improved.

However, in the process of heaping praise on the “self esteem generation,” studies show they have become so addicted to affirmation that they actually prefer “moments that boost self esteem more than having sex, eating a favorite food, drinking or pretty much any other pleasurable activity.”

During a sermon last week, Tate Cockrell, Pastor of Member Care at the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, totally nailed the problem with this approach to parenting and education.

An excerpt from his remarks can be found below and in the video above. The stats from the Gallup survey will blow your mind.

Rather than preparing them for life by giving them discipline and instruction, we have taught them to buy into the lie that the most important thing in their life is their self-esteem — the absolute most important thing in their life is how they feel about themselves.

(…)

And this started around the 1950s when the myth of self-esteem came into play.

In 1950, the Gallup organization asked high school seniors, “Do you think that you are a very important person.” In 1950, 12 percent of them said “yes.” In 2005, they asked the same question. 80 percent of high school seniors said “yes.”

In 1962 there were no articles on self-esteem in any educational journals. In 1992, 30 years later, there were 2,500 articles that year, and there have been that many or more every year since.

So this paradox has now happened in our culture where because we don’t instruct and because we don’t discipline, we are falling further and further down the scale morally and educationally and performance-wise, but we are feeling better and better about ourselves.

So we’re dumb and immoral, but feel great about it.

To check out Cockrell’s full sermon on “The Gospel, Grace and Relationships,” head over to the Church at Brooks Hills website.