It is good to realize that is love and peace can prevail on Earth, and if we can teach our children to honor the Earth and each other, our days on this planet shall be long and many. We who have received a knowledge of the great plan of happiness—and its implementing commandments—should feel a desire to share that knowledge since it makes all the difference here and in eternity. The virtue of mildness or good temper is concerned with anger. A mild person ought to be angry about some things (about injustice and other forms of mistreatment) and should be willing to stand up for oneself and those one cares about. Not to do so would indicate the morally deficient character of the inirascrible person. It would also be inappropriate to take offense and get angry if there is nothing worth getting angry about. That response would indicate the morally excessive character of the irascible person. The mild person’s reactions are appropriate to the situation. Sometimes intense anger is appropriate; at other times calm detachment is. It is understandable that when students of the self-concept turn their attention to the educational institution, they tend to focus primarily on academic performance. School, after all, is the main business of a child’s life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

Furthermore, there are very few areas of life in which a person is so constantly and explicitly evaluated. Report cards, or school marks, represent public objective, and authoritative assessment of an important aspect of the child’s worth. It thus is not surprising to find that there tends to be a beneficial association between academic performance and self-esteem (through the association is not always strong). What is less clear is what this statistical association means. If the self-concept does influence academic performance, is it the individual’s overall feeling of worth (one’s global self-esteem) that is responsible or is it the specific component of self-concept of academic ability tends to be more strongly associated with school achievement. In other words, it is not one’s overall feeling of worth as a human being (which may be based on many things) but one’s self-conceived talent in a specific area that is most closely related to performance. For example, the relation ship between ability on IQ tests and global self-esteem generally appears to be about r = .20–.30. This shows that the correlation between school marks and academic self-concept is r = .57. In general, there is a much higher correlation between school marks and academic self-concept than between marks and global self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

This observation concerning the part and whole may be generalized beyond school marks. If specific types of behavior are under consideration, the specific self-concept component will almost invariably be more relevant than the global attitude. Some educators, concerned about the academic performance of disprivilieged children, have attributed this performance to the lower global self-esteem of the disprivilieged children and have argued that it is necessary to enhance dispriviliged children’s global self-esteem. However, if self-concept change is to affect school performance, it will be less through convincing the child that one is generally a person of worth than in persuading one that one has the specific ability to do well on tests. In viewing the self-concept either as a social product or a social force, it is important to keep the distinction between the part and the whole in the forefront of attention. So, it may be more adventitious to encourage students and tell them that they have potential to do well, rather than not grading them fairly or being overly harsh. If an individual truly wants to learn, their homework assignments and tests are a way of communicating that through their effort. If students are not doing well, it may be that they have some other distractions keeping from their assignments. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

Children that come from dysfunctional homes or are bullied sometimes are emotionally distracted and need to talk about what it happening so they can release the tension and adequately focus on their assignments. When people go out of their way to target individuals, it negatively impacts their performance and will prohibit from advancing with the rest of their peers. Therefore, consoling could be an important part of the educational process. However, even when we find an association between academic performance and self-esteem, the question remains: is self-esteem a consequence of academic performance or a cause of it? There is theoretical support for both positions. Self-consistency theory, which holds that we tend to behave in accordance with our self-expectations, would view the self-concept as the cause of behavior. For example, a child with ample ability may unconsciously make a number of spelling errors because one has developed a view of oneself as a poor speller. One’s poor performance represents an effort to remain true to one’s self-concept. Nevertheless, spellings errors do not mean that a child has an intellectual deficiency. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

Spelling errors can go back to when a child is learning to read and sound out words. If an instructor rushes through this process, a child may be very good at reading, but not know how to spell as well as others because they do not know how to sound out words. Also, children who speak more than one language could have difficulties spelling. And if adults do not pronounce words correctly, children will pick that up and spell them wrong. For instance, on an episode of Bewtiched: Samantha on the Keyboard (original airdate 10 October 1968), Grandmama Endora makes Tabatha, who is only four years old, play like a musical genius. Her father, Darrin, overhears the music and gets upset because he thinks it is a product of witchcraft and upsets Endora and she takes the piano back and leaves. Then Darrin promises Samantha he will buy a new piano as long as Samantha learns to play it. So, Tabatha overhears her mother playing then piano and later mimics the novice way in which her mother plays. The self-attribution theory holds that we draw conclusions about what we are likely be observing our behavior or its outcomes. The person who fails in school judges oneself, as one would judge anyone else, as academically inept. In this case, these marks are viewed as the cause of the academic self-concept.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

That proves that if children are taught to pronounce words right, they will likely be able to spell them properly. Nevertheless, President George Washington was not a great spelling, but very smart and also the first American President. Also, when children are learning, we should never tease them about how they are performing, but encourage them. It is best to use a dictionary to find works one cannot spell or sound them out and try that way. Since the self-concept and the behavior may thus affect one another, the question is: which has the greater effect on the other? By means of a cross-lagged panel correlation, it was concluded that academic performance affected academic self-concept more than the other way around; the effect, however, is stronger for girls than for boys. The evidence indicates that the self-concept also affects academic performance, but that this effect is weaker. When we are doing well in school we feel better about ourselves because it is our job and will have a huge impact on the rest of our lives. In addition, sometimes being confident is a good thing because confident students may feel more comfortable to seek help in academic areas where they are underperforming. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

Another critical issue involved in interpreting the relationship between academic self-concept and academic achievement is the question of whether the marks are attributed to qualities of the person or components of the self-concept. Does someone do well on test because one believes one is academically competent or because one actually is academically competent? This issue is widely overlooked. If people who believe they are tall are more likely to be good basketball players, their basketball skill is less attributable to their views of themselves as tall than to their actual height. To be able to conclude that the self-concept per se affect behavior, one must equate people in terms of objective characteristics. This issue was explored in a large-scale study of junior high school pupils. The question raised by these investigators was whether, among pupils of equivalent academic talent, youngsters with optimistic academic self-concepts did better in school than those with negative self-concepts? For both boys and girls, it was found, the zero order correlation between academic self-concept and school marks was .57; controlling on IQ, however, the partial correlation remained .42 and .39 for boys and girls, respectively. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

Independent of objective ability, then, those who viewed themselves as more academically able performed substantially better in school. The self-concept apparently can importantly influence and be influenced by school performance independent of objective ability, then, those who viewed themselves as more academically able performed substantially better in school. The self-concept apparently can importantly influence and be influenced by school performance independent of the person’s actual abilities. The confidence with which one approaches a task, the amount of effort one devotes to it, and the freedom from disruptive stress that interferes with performance may all influence academic achievement. These, in turn, may be strongly influenced by the self-concept. However, also keep in mind that if individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes. Most of us run into such problems every day: my needs versus your needs, or those of the family, club, plant, or nation. Few problems occupy a more central spot in our scale of human values. In many way, it is the job of our personalities to figure out answers to this dilemma—to mediate between society’s push and pull and the insistent demands of self. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

The self-concept doubtlessly affects and is affected by the educational institution in many other ways as well. Many people have discussed how the teacher’s expectations for the child may affect the child’s performance. If such effects do, in fact, exist, they are almost certain to be mediated by the child’s self-concept. Children have enormous respect for adults. Teachers should not say things like, “I sense some confusion in this room, in relation to the subject matter, and it is not general,” then look at a certain student. If a child believes that the teacher expects him or her to fail, the child, attributing great wisdom to the teacher, is likely to expect oneself to fail. It is thus possible that the teacher’s expectations for the child are converted into the child’s self-expectations, which, following the principle of self-consistency, are converted into academic performance. On another note, children, and even college students should be respectful of their parents and spend time with them because there may be things that a parent is going through that they do not want to share with you and one day you will look back an understand why. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

There was a father who served in war and ended up catching cancer from agent orange, which was a poison used to kill trees that was also sprayed on the soldiers. He got ride of the cancer, but was sick all of his life and worked to support his children. When he son was in college, the father kept him on a tight budget and did not like going places and even asked his son if we wanted him to enroll in college with him. The son, embarrassed, of course did not know why and said no. The father knew he was dying soon and really wanted to spend time with his son. About a year later, he died while his son was preparing for final exams. Family is so important and you really should love and support them because we do not know how long we will have each other. It is just my wish that people who have passed into Heaven know how much we care about them and how much we think about them and how much we miss them. When the seed of love is sown into our hearts, you have to water it with loyalty and cultivate it with sincerity, and then the fruit it bears is sure to be happiness. The clash of souls touches off the flashes over the Winter jasmine, and we walk hand in hand into the World of youth. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10