How competition can ruin a school
Quiz:
Who was the second man on the moon?
Who won the silver medal for freestyle swimming in the 2016 olympics?
Rank the Olympians in order of happiness: Gold, Silver, Bronze
Answers: Buzz Aldrin; Pieter Timmers; First place was the happiest, but third place was far happier than second place. Why is that? Bronze medalists beat their opponent, whereas Silver lost, and to a forgettable degree[1]. The quiz reveals an important truth: losing is socially expensive, even for those who stand on the moon, or finish milliseconds behind the world's best.
The loss from competition feels so inherently motivating that it dominates as a strategy for teaching, especially among high-performing international schools. These are the schools that emphasise competition at every opportunity, from grades to spirit points. Selective schools depend on parents not knowing that I.Q. (genetic) and conscientiousness will account for over 90% of life's outcomes, including lifespan [ii]. The majority of value of a selective school is that it places students into a specific group. However, overemphasising competition and outcomes (e.g. grades, class rank) within that group correlates with anti-social behaviour, poorer mental health, and reduced well-being [iii]. Competition is an outdated approach to teaching and learning.
Boys and Girls Play Differently
Boys and girls think of competition differently. Boys announce their status to others; everyone will know who kicks the ball the best, the worst, and what grades they earned on a test as well as the grades of others. Boys have little regard for the value of their skill in comparison to the prestige it offers them. Class clowns are often full of hidden intelligence. Girls, on the other hand, tend to emphasize similarities among their relationships. If one girl shows up to school dressed too differently, or does remarkably better on an assignment, she risks her friends. This dynamic leaves boys and girls with a major problem: boys take on an enormous social risk to compete with girls. If a boy competes and loses, he will hear about it. If he wins, he appears domineering or mean. He will hear about that, too. It is no surprise that girls tend to have higher grades or outnumber boys in university enrolment [iv].
Differences aside, kids value cooperation much more than competition. Girls love their social group precisely because they belong to it. Ask a boy what he loves about his video games and he talk about his role within his team, and by extension, he then feels connected to every other boy that plays that game. When students lie, cheat or plagiarise, it is usually because they aim to conform, or at a minimum, to protect their standing among others, not to cause harm. When adults punish the lie without acknowledging the goals of cooperation, they mainly teach children to tell better lies. Overemphasising outcomes robs students of the opportunity to understand their own motivations. Emphasising the process and teaching cooperation fosters friendships and feelings of safety and security.
Being Teased or Left Out of Group Activities
Groups stick together by pointing out differences. Sheep, Impalas, Zebras, all highly social animals, hide within their herd. When a lion hunts, it targets the animal that has strayed further from the pack than the others. Predators hide in the grass; either alone, or with other predators.
Distinguishing bullying from teasing is an important part of facilitating cooperation. Bullying happens intentionally, repeatedly and is about power[v]. Just because a student feels left out of group activities, or their group teased them, this does not mean that they've been bullied, or that they are weak. When bullies tease, they don’t tease the only weak ones; that’d be too easy, which would earn them less respect as a bully, not more. Pointing out differences, or teasing, is anything that attempts to keep kids in the herd, not push them out. When kids do not take into account the perspectives of others (they have messy hair, they're disorganised, they do less than their share of the work in a group, etc.), they will not be welcomed into the group until they rectify their behaviors. Sometimes, talking your child through the problems that they think preceded feeling left out is exactly what's needed for them to act more social, cooperative, and mature.
Three Practical Strategies for Leveraging Cooperation
I once heard a brilliant maths teacher ask his students to write “I learn for you” on their notebooks. At the end of his lesson, the students were asked to teach their partner what they learned; the learner practiced listening by summarizing what the other student said. The students could only continue once the listener had repeated what the speaker said AND the speaker agreed with their restatement. This listening skill would likely challenge most adults.
When students crave a contest, make points contribute toward an overall school-wide total, goal, or at least define ways for kids to contribute to the group. Forcing some kids to win is the same as forcing others to lose. No one wants to go to a school where they feel like a loser. Whether an arbitrary letter grade or subjective points, students will be motivated to cooperate with their group at all costs, so make it a point to help them define their group as broadly as possible.
Finally, teach students that they have an obligation to choose friends who are good for them. Equipping them with skills they need to voluntarily overcome some social anxieties in order to seek out a friend that is reliable, or at least empathetic enough to understand their struggles, would add immense value to both lives. Kids that do not learn how to cooperate with others end up living in a world where everyone they will encounter will be lying, ignore them, act mean, or all three. The future of education depends on teaching skills for effective cooperation, not competition.
