Why kids are afraid to ask for help
Yet another example of trying to solve psychological/emotional issues through cultural changes. The root problem is low self-esteem; it's internal, not external; it takes deep inner work, not a change in social norms and teacher behavior. It affects some kids deeply, and some not at all. It's not "caused" by the culture or the environment, but by parenting.<p>Psychology is stuck in a weird place. Most cultural knowledge of "self-esteem" comes from self-help crap, when it should be coming from psychologists. What if we lived in a world where everyone knows how to recognize low self-esteem, how to interact with insecure people effectively, and how to help them build their self-esteem durably, as opposed to these proto-team-building-exercises they're proposing here? The traditional thinking is that you fix emotional issues through therapy sessions; but if we changed the culture to become more emotions-aware, people would know how to help each other and themselves far better. The fact that so many pop-psychology books sell so much, is proof that there's a deep need for this.<p>Some studies say 70-80% of people have some degree of low self-esteem. Depending on the study, 50-70% of the whole population have an attachment disorder, and literally lack the ability to form healthy emotional bonds. You don't fix that through culture. "Instructors could create activities in which each student becomes an 'expert' on a different topic"? Come on man. They have to let go of the old DSM-5 model of "10-15 of the population is crazy, everyone else is perfectly fine". Psychologists have a far bigger role to play in society than they currently do.<p>Fixing psychological and emotional problems through cultural change just doesn't solve anything. Fix the root cause. You would literally fix both the low self-esteem that inhibits people from asking questions, and the bullying that results from being seen as "dumb".