it can affect your method of teaching, how you view your students and even how you feel about yourself.

If only all your students felt good about themselves, no bullying, less behavioural problems - perhaps a perfect class.

But that's not going to happen any time soon - "only in the movies" as they say.

However as their teacher, you do have a lot of influence in the way your students feel about themselves. I know that teaching self esteem is not in the school curriculum, but it should be. You have to squeeze it in somewhere, it's vital.

Self esteem lesson plans can be incorporated into your Health units or in the Language Arts/Literacy programme.

After the first month of teaching or if you are a more experienced teacher, you will be able to tell, in the first week or two, which students display symptoms of low self esteem and then you will have to create ways to improve self esteem.

Early on, when identifying low student self esteem, you can give your students classroom jobs to do or school responsibilities; e.g., sending them on errands, having them do certain jobs in the classroom, such as putting tests in alphabetical order or putting up some art work.

Building self esteem is so important - making students feel good about themselves is such a wonderful feeling - it's a natural high for you as well.

It creates a more positive atmosphere in the class and your students will produce a better quality of work - a much more rewarding experience - a win-win situation.

One unit I created on the topic of student self esteem was called "All About Me". It was basically a Health unit with Language Arts/Literacy components.

The unit began with a baby naming contest. Most of the students secretly brought in their baby pictures. I brought in mine too.

Everyone had to guess who was who - I created a bulletin board of all the pictures. I also created a staff bulletin board of the staffs' baby pictures in our staff room. It was a big hit.

The "All About Me" unit consisted of a variety of activities and worksheets:

* a history of their birth

* family tree

* immediate and extended family

* maternal and paternal grandparents

* likes and dislikes

* hobbies, interests and friends

* future plans

* etc., etc., etc.

I consider all of these activities/worksheets to be student self esteem worksheets, because they are all about themselves. My students absolutely loved this unit, and believe me, they really felt great about themselves throughout the teaching of the unit.

Creating/designing self esteem worksheets and having your students complete them will give you more insight into how your students feel about themselves.

Please read about two other examples of self esteem worksheets that I gave to my students. They need to be completed honestly.

Keep in mind that you can do a lot of student self esteem worksheets and activities in your class; however, students go home after school and you don't know what goes on behind closed doors.

Unfortunately with some students you have to start all over again the very next day.

It's a continuing on-going process, and if you are lucky enough to reach some of your kids, your student self esteem building will pay off big time as they will grow to become confident and positive adults. Wouldn't that be wonderful!!!