My WHOLELIFE has been basically trying to find INTELLIGENT students or, you know, highly motivated students and giving them an opportunity to do GOODSCIENCE.
SURE, the JOB of high school TEACHERS is not to tear down students' SELF-ESTEEM. But it's CERTAINLY not to inflate students' sense of self-worth with a bunch of unearned compliments and half-truths.
I regularly take my entrepreneurship students out walking because I want to GET them in the habit of noticing and THINKING about what they notice. They have to leave their PHONESBEHIND to LEARN the basic lesson: Be where you are.