Problems in American Education - Part 22: Competition

Sometimes as Americans we seem to feel that we have the corner on the free enterprise system and on the concept of competition as a cornerstone for progress. Perhaps its the Puritan in us that still surfaces, but we want to believe in an underlying theme that implies that success in a free system is evidence of virtue and that only those who deserve to succeed will succeed.

I too have to admit that I am a big fan of competition. I love sports, for instance, and, as a long-suffering Red Sox fan, I am still floating on the romance of what happened last year. Moreso, I believe that competition in a free system can bring out the best in children as they strive to realize potential. There is a nobility and esprit d’corps benefits in demonstrating competitive effort and I believe that nobility is one of the finest by-products we can hope to have surface in the learning process. When I was very young, idealistic, and somewhat naive, I did have some concerns about the lack of a level playing field that led me to pursue some socialistic inclinations in the way I thought; but as I grew older, while I still seriously regretted our tendency to let that playing field slope, I came to realize that ours was still the most effective of all systems as far as affording opportunity for all.

As an educator and also as a coach, I realized that fair and clean competition offered a great chance for students to have fun while striving to do their best in matching their skills against others. In many ways, it looked like, and still looks like, a great motivational tool and very close to a win/win way to approach learning.

The key problem, however, is that, as public educators in what is supposed to be an egalitarian society, we always have to remember that we have a responsibility to teach both the winners and the losers in a competitive environment. One of the unspoken whispers that you hear if you are a thinking educator is the one that says losers don’t count anymore after they have lost. Actually, by definition, it is the system itself that promotes that notion by saying that winning means you go on to a higher level, or a higher grouping, or a better team, or whatever. The trap is one in which educators are told that the kid who wins deserves the fruit of victory while the losers are sharply dismissed to much lower expectations. There are precious few opportunities for comebacks in our system. Very few do what the Red Sox did - win the wild card and then beat the Yankees after being down three games to none. Sorry - had to get that one in.

But I repeat, one of the most important contentions of this series is that winning does not make a child more worthy for ultimate success, just as having wealthy parents does not make him or her more worthy. Conversely, losing at an immature age should not condemn a child to a lower bracketing that forecloses opportunities to step up to that level playing field in the future.

As educators, we do not have the dubious luxury of labeling our students so quickly. We must remember that we are still dealing with children. The nature of children is to make mistakes. That means that sometimes they will lose in the game of competition. Our job in education is, to the best of our ability, to take those losses and turn them into victories - creating steps on which students can rise up to overcome.

This installment is admittedly very philosophical and abstract; but it is not too difficult to take the thoughts and see their application in daily school activities and programs. It covers an underlying principle we see as operative in American education and it is one of those principles that deserves some examination. On one level, it is a principle that can serve a purpose if used in moderation and with good judgement. On another level, one that can be seen to surface a bit too often, it can lead to excess and self-service for those who enjoy early success or who seek to stratify our schools, something that ironically seems to represent the antithesis of what our country is supposed to represent. Think about it and think about what you have seen for yourself in observation of American education. Competition is clearly one of those methodological tools in which you can have too much of a good thing.