Past, Present, and Future

In the recent past, certain classrooms have operated on the theory that all students should be rewarded for any effort. I have taken several classes in which I felt that every student, regardless of the actual quality of his/her work, is rewarded at the same rate. On this subject, I tend to agree with Rachael Young, who says in her article on helium.com, "Is Competition in the Classroom Really Helpful for Kids," "People will always be rewarded for the highest quality work, and if teachers reward mediocre, above average, and below average results at the same rate, they are only doing their students a disservice, because then the bar is lowered for everyone" (1). I think this is absolutely true. Competition does not always have to be harmful for students, which is the idea that I have gathered from most classes I have taken on pedagogy. Virtually every teacher of pedagogy I have encountered says that competition makes students feel inadequate and leads them to become frustrated and give up. Around 19% of the students surveyed who noticed competition being fostered by the teacher said that it was not helpful for them. About 75% of these students said that it was helpful for them. Praise for competition fostered by teachers straight from the students' mouths:

• "It pushes me to do my best and learn from my mistakes to do better."


• "It helped by making me more aware of studying and pushing me harder."


• "It promoted all teams to do their best."


• "It made me want to do better."


• "I believe it helped in motivating students to do better than normal in class."


• "It helped because it was a team competition which helped me get to know new people and it was just a friendly competition."


• "Usually it helps because I want to be rewarded by teachers."


• "It usually only helps grades."


• "Any competition that I have noticed generally helps my progress because I love competition."


• "If it were to happen, it would probably just help me."


• "I believe competition in a classroom can boost student academic potential."


• "It made me study harder."

The three students surveyed who said that competition was not good for them had this to say:

• "I think it would harm my progress because I am not competitive when it comes to grades and if someone tries to make me competitive, I may do the opposite because I am spiteful like that and don't care."


• "When work is publicly evaluated and compared by the teachers, the students tend to look at everyone else's work in comparison to themselves. [I] tended to judge myself too harshly, work myself to death, get frustrated, and give up."


• "Competition between students is harmful to self-esteems."

I have to say that I have trouble accepting one of these opinions because the student says that he doesn't care. At any rate, the last two in this group tend to agree with what I have heard from several teachers of pedagogy and classroom management. Many of these teachers want their students to feel good about their work, which is definitely not a bad thing to want, but my concern is that this feel-good attitude will come at the cost of better quality work. In his article "Using Competition in the Classroom," John Schindler outlines some of the ways in which competition can be bad for students. He says that it may make them feel threatened or anxious. He also says that it can promote "a tendency to take on a mentality defined by 'fear of failure.'” I have to agree that these are possibilities, but aren't students just as affected by a fear of success? Marano, in "The Fear of Success," from Psychology Today, says that most people will at some point be affected by a fear of achieving the things they want. The logic that some teachers use to defend their attitudes about not wanting their students to fail seems as though it must also prevent them from wanting their students to succeed, if that is what their students are afraid of. My point here is not that we should wish our students failure, but that we should look into what makes them succeed and if the overwhelming majority of them are saying that competition is part of what helps them, why can't we utilize it for their advantage? Most students will need, at some point, the kind of external motivation that can be provided by friendly competition, but I do agree with Schindler when he lists the four criteria for successful competition in the classroom:

• It’s for fun.
• The Reward is not “valuable/real.”
• There is no long-term effect from the episode.
• All individuals or groups see a reasonable change of winning.

With these concepts in mind, students can compete in such a way that helps them to accomplish a goal while at the same time learning their own strengths and the ways in which they can utilize the strengths of their classmates. Group workshopping is helpful in these kinds of circumstances as well. When students can see the strengths of others, they not only see their own weaknesses more clearly, but they get a better sense of how to improve those weaknesses. With a sense of what healthy competition can provide, the students will be more equipped to go into the fields of their choosing, realizing that the world is a fairly competitive place, but dealing with the competition in a productive way. Our job is to prepare our students and one of the best ways we can do this is to help them see the benefits of the situations they will encounter later on.

Works Cited

Marano, Hara Estroff. "The Fear of Success." Psychology Today 17 December 2002: 1-2. 1 Dec. 2007. <http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20031224-000001.xml>.

Schindler, John. "Using Competition in the Classroom" from Transformative Classroom Management. 29 Nov. 2007. <http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/jschindl/cm/competition.htm>.

Young, Rachael. "Is Competition in the Classroom Helpful for Kids?" 29 Nov. 2007. .