Like her, there are many students in the United States who are happy to express their ideas and knowledge, and then students receive the prize of a good grade. It is easy for them to reach the knowledge standard. Unfortunately, that standard may be too easy to reach. In Kie Ho’s essay “We Should Cherish Our Children’s Freedom to Think,” and Randy Moore’s, “Grades and Self-Esteem,” we learn that both believe that American students have been learning less in exchange for high self- esteem at school.

The American education system has been letting students speak freely at school, motivating them to express their creativity, and creating hopes for students’ parents.

Both authors have opposite points of view about speaking freely at school. Ho is more in favor whereas Moore wants students to return to knowledge. As for Ho, he uses positive support. For example, his son showed his thought liberally though an assignment. The homework consisted of writing a love letter to Juliet. They could choose between “using Shakespearean jargon or using modern lingo”. His son wrote, “Romeo would take Juliet to an arcade for a game of Donkey Kong.” His son was unrestricted in how he could illustrate his inspiration about the assignment.

Another of Ho’s positive support of speaking freely is when Ho went on an excursion at the Laguna Beach Museum of Art where he was exposed to the schoolchildren’s work. He said, “they had transformed simple paper lunch bags into, among other things, a waterfall with flying fish…” Ho was amazed by the children’s creativity. They used another language to express their ideas. The free expression creates a high self-confidence in the student.

However, Moore disagrees that students should speak freely. He exposes that students will not care about content, context, accuracy and worth. Students would believe that expressing ourselves is the important part of speaking. They are becoming nonjudgmental since the significance fraction of this is revealing information. Students would not be concerned about how they present what they know even it is in an immoral or unpleasant way.

As Moore testified, this disciple is going in a wrong direction by saying, “don’t worry about learning, thinking or communicating; the important thing is to feel good about ourselves.” The free speaking could lead us to chaos. People would not need to think before they say something even if it might hurt others. They already believe that feeling good about them is more important than the way to divulge content. They would not show respect to others because they could display everything they want. Everybody would only apply to their self-esteem.

In this point both authors have the same position: that teacher tends to promote students because of self-esteem rather than knowledge. Ho shows this point with his son’s experience. His son got an A because of a laugh that he made by expressing his thinking. The teacher motivated him, and demonstrated to others students that saying your opinion would get an award. His son’s self-esteem leads him to express a concocted idea. Indirectly the teacher shows to the class that teachers care about the opinion rather than the information.

In the same manner Moore exposes that some high school seniors in some states get diplomas of attendance rather that of knowledge. Considering that not every student passes the test, and if their score don’t qualify they won’t get their diploma. However, in order to not to hurt students’ self-esteem, they give meaningless diplomas. At the same time these diplomas “causes false hopes about their knowledge” in students’ parents.

Furthermore, both authors agree that the American education system has lowered their standards in order to not to damage students’ self-esteem. Ho makes it known that a Japanese businessman in Los Angeles, CA believes that the mathematics level is higher in Japan than the United States. Hence, his children go to a private school where the teachers are imported from Japan. He does not want his children to study at least a one year lower mathematics’ level in the United States. And Ho says, “there’s no doubt that American education does not meet high standards in such basic skills as mathematics…” The American education lets students to achieve this level easily in order to accomplish their self-confidence.

In addition Moore proves that the education system has lowered their standards. There is grade inflation because school gives a lot of opportunities to students to change their score. For example, students could withdraw a course and eliminate or not record failing grades. As a consequence, in 1966 teachers gave as many C’s as A’s. By 1978, the A’s went above C’s. In 1990, the average academic score for their entire high school was A. Considering these teachers lowered their standard to a point where the students did not need to make a lot of effort to attain high scores. Students have high self-esteem when they achieve the goal.

Recall that American students learn more about high self-esteem at school rather than knowledge. Ho and Moore have their points of view about this, and they had presented their support though this essay. Both believe that the American system is not a great deal, but at least we have an education system which is not sausage-casing, stuffing ideas into students mind. Ho is in favor that self-esteem is important as well as self-expression. And Moore supports that higher self-esteem is not equal to lowered standards. The best for students is to have a balance with the knowledge and skills. So both authors agree that teachers should motive more students to be better every day, to achieve higher levels, and to express their ideas.