Charles Darwin ventured to the Galapagos Islands and discovered wonders unknown to man. With these new creatures, he unraveled the idea of survival of the fittest. The best traits always survive, the strongest creatures exist the longest. The two horrific shooters of the Columbine High School massacre took this idea, survival of the fittest, as a joke and used it as an excuse to murder countless innocent students. They thought that only the people that were strong enough would survive their massacre. Many teachers feel that a way to avoid this type of mentality is to cease competition and build everyone’s self-esteem so that all students will feel happy. It is a part of life to have to compete against one another, some of which include
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In Jean Twenge’s “An Army of One: Me”, she emphasizes on the shunning of competition and the embracement of self-esteem. To Twenge, self-esteem will become our downfall, what will cause us to become narcissistic individuals instead of a caring society and that is why she felt the importance of informing Americans of this before it was too late. With the progression of self-esteem building mentalities in the American society, individuals will start to lose sense of others and agree that the most important entity in life is to love one’s self. It is important to inform the American’s who push self-esteem onto people that bit by bit, narcissistic identities in Americans are starting to increase. Self love is becoming more important than it was years ago; schools nowadays are neglecting the importance of competition, and with self-esteem ideologies increasing, so are narcissistic …show more content…
When they exit the safe confines of school, most of their employers will be those of the Baby Boomer generation, causing them to not have their self-esteem sheltered like they are so used to. As Twenge discussed, teaching a kindergarten student about self-esteem is very unnecessary at such a young age. Twenge says, “It seems the school started a bit young, however, because the child then asked, ‘Daddy, all the kids are wondering, what does ‘capable’ mean?’” (Twenge 495). The fact that the child is asking what capable means is a big indicator that nothing is really being taught, that the American society is so desperate to enforce self-esteem that they do not care that the students do not even know what it means. With the application of self-esteem in schools, students fail to see the importance of competition. There are going to be many obstacles in life that people will have to overcome and those people are being taught that competition is not good because if they fail, they would endanger their self-esteem. Twenge believes that the concept of self-esteem is forcing people not to comprehend the importance of competition. With competition, people can become more realistic. Capable is part of self-esteem and that is what teachers are teaching their students. What their students must learn to understand is that capable means that individuals have the qualities to
In Jean Twenge’s “An Army of One: Me”, she emphasizes on the shunning of competition and the embracement of self-esteem. To Twenge, self-esteem will become our downfall, what will cause us to become narcissistic individuals instead of a caring society and that is why she felt the importance of informing Americans of this before it was too late. With the progression of self-esteem building mentalities in the American society, individuals will start to lose sense of others and agree that the most important entity in life is to love one’s self. It is important to inform the American’s who push self-esteem onto people that bit by bit, narcissistic identities in Americans are starting to increase. Self love is becoming more important than it was years ago; schools nowadays are neglecting the importance of competition, and with self-esteem ideologies increasing, so are narcissistic …show more content…
When they exit the safe confines of school, most of their employers will be those of the Baby Boomer generation, causing them to not have their self-esteem sheltered like they are so used to. As Twenge discussed, teaching a kindergarten student about self-esteem is very unnecessary at such a young age. Twenge says, “It seems the school started a bit young, however, because the child then asked, ‘Daddy, all the kids are wondering, what does ‘capable’ mean?’” (Twenge 495). The fact that the child is asking what capable means is a big indicator that nothing is really being taught, that the American society is so desperate to enforce self-esteem that they do not care that the students do not even know what it means. With the application of self-esteem in schools, students fail to see the importance of competition. There are going to be many obstacles in life that people will have to overcome and those people are being taught that competition is not good because if they fail, they would endanger their self-esteem. Twenge believes that the concept of self-esteem is forcing people not to comprehend the importance of competition. With competition, people can become more realistic. Capable is part of self-esteem and that is what teachers are teaching their students. What their students must learn to understand is that capable means that individuals have the qualities to