Do you remember being in a Spelling bee? I sure do. I was a HORRIBLE speller, and never made it to the school spelling bee. I can tell you that I still get knots in my stomach thinking about it now as a 25 year old. I remember one instance in particular. I was in 4th grade, and we were doing some spelling "around the world" to see who the winner of our class was. The winner of each class would then get to stand up in front of the school and compete to be the spelling bee winner of the entire school. It was round one in our classroom, and I missed up the very first word. Everyone laughed at me, and I was incredibly embarrassed and down. I'm sure no one else remembers me missing the first word, but to this day I still will not spell a word for someone needing help. Spelling bees are competitive and T& Johnson explain it perfectly : "An interpersonal, competitive situation is characterized by negative goal interdependence, where, when one person wins, the others lose. T & Johnson, p 280)." Negative goal interdependence happened with lots of things when I was in school. Spelling bees, around the world, math facts, I could go on and on. Each of those activities, to this day, make me cringe. I have adapted my teaching style around this, in fact. I never teach in a way that negatively effects any of my students. I want them to learn, but I refuse to distrees any of my students while they are learning. In my opinion, the learning environment should be a positive one.
In an article from Queen's University, the author talks about team sports helping children become successful. The article discusses how being with a team gives children all sorts of positive benefits. "Coaches who were able to help children improve against their own benchmarks rather than focusing on comparison with others, and who provided challenging, innovative practices also helped foster an environment in which young players displayed initiative and motivation (Queens, p1)."The key in that statement, however, is that the coach is focusing on the player, not comparing the players. In a sport, each child or person's skills matter. Each person works on their skills to improve, which then helps the entire team. Players on the team work together to make the team better. In my experience, the coaches who brought out the most where the ones who looked at the team as a whole, instead of it's parts.
To look at the other side of this argument, competition creates students that will work hard to achieve something. It seems like more and more in sports, children are given awards even if they didn't "win" something. I've heard of organizations giving participation awards to every player, or even not keeping score of a game. While I don't believe all competition has a place in school, I do think it is important to teach children that we are not all winners, and we will not always win. If our society continues to do this, we will be creating people that are motivated not by being better, but by simply participating. Would we want a pilot flying a plane that wasn't good at it, but he/she tried? Absolutely not. We have to continually practice and work very hard, and even then, we still might not win or be the best. But it's fun to try! We must instill the drive to become better, but the knowledge that we are not all the best at everything.
In looking at how to improve certain activities to promote a better environment for competition, I think simple changes can make a very big difference. For instance, when looking at a spelling bee, one could change the competition from single players to a group atmosphere. Groups must work together to outsmart the other team.
Sources
Belfield, C. R., & Levin, H. M. (2002). The effects of competition between schools on educational outcomes: A review for the United States. Review of Educational research, 72(2), 279-341.
Roger, T., & Johnson, D. W. (1988). Cooperative Learning. Transforming Education.
Queen's University (2011, July 20). Team sports: For kids, it's more than just a game. ScienceDaily.
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