Posted on 11/28/2007 6:09:47 AM PST by shrinkermd
For decades now, psychology and pedagogy researchers have been debating the impact of competition on young people's self-esteem, with those wary of thought competition taking the lead.
"We don't want kids to compete individually, put themselves in vulnerable positions as individuals," explains a leading administrator. "They can compete within teams," explains another. "So the focus is on community building rather than on personal value."
But what about Sam's sense of personal value? Aren't human beings fabulously varied in their gifts and sensibilities? Excellent teamwork can be important, but is it the only admirable achievement? Should any school in the United States prevent broader acknowledgment of a young, creative mathematician?
Mel Levine, a professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the foremost authorities in the country on how children learn, believes the impact of the collaborative education movement has been devastating to an entire generation. When students are rewarded for participation rather than achievement, Dr. Levine suggests, they don't have a strong sense of what they are good at and what they're not. Thus older members of Generation Y might be in for quite a shock when they show up for work at their first jobs. "They expect to be immediate heroes and heroines. They expect a lot of feedback on a daily basis. They expect grade inflation, they expect to be told what a wonderful job they're doing," says Dr. Levine.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
“We don’t want kids to compete individually, put themselves in vulnerable positions as individuals,” explains a leading administrator. “They can compete within teams,” explains another. “So the focus is on community building rather than on personal value.”
Right because when you apply for a job, you do it with other team members.
The wussification of America continues.
When students are rewarded for participation rather than achievement, Dr. Levine suggests, they don’t have a strong sense of what they are good at and what they’re not.
teamwork is very important after you get the job
“When students are rewarded for participation rather than achievement, Dr. Levine suggests, they don’t have a strong sense of what they are good at and what they’re not.”
They recently began a fall soccer program in my area that competes with the one they already have in the spring...but with no scoring, just for “fun.” My son wanted to play but I won’t let him until the spring one. I know I’m probably being a fuddy duddy but the idea of playing a soccer game without keeping score is asinine. What’s he learning? He already knows how to play...but to what end?
Ah yes, the participation award, or as my child calls it, the "thanks for showing up" award.
That quote reached out of the paper and slapped me -
this educrat is a SOCIALIST, and is attempting to indoctrinate kids into the same destructive mindset.
“teamwork is very important after you get the job”
Of course it is. But that wasn’t my point. You engage in rigorous competition to secure employment. Kids growing up need to become accustomed to that sort of competition.
you need both competition and cooperation. There are conservatives who take the opposite extreme
I think the breakdown is simple: Collectivist vs Individualist.
These folks are pushing team effort rather than personal effort. These folks are pushing Collectivism. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis and the Democrats are smiling.
“you need both competition and cooperation.”
In procuring a job? Cooperation from whom?
Obviously, someone has never heard of ‘networking’. Hell, who you know and who you can ‘grease’ is often more important than your qualifications!
to succeed in life you need both. You’re not going to get a job without people skills.
Yup, yup, yup and yup.
“Obviously, someone has never heard of ‘networking’.”
Networking is a tool of competition, not cooperation with a competing job seeker.
Naaaah. I can't be bothered to learn people skills. I figure someone else in my group will have the people skills, so I'm just going to color this poster over here ...
“You’re not going to get a job without people skills.”
Yes, I know. What does that have to do with the competing factor in job searches?
Ping
when we visited Boston, we couldn’t help but notice just how many drunk and “not quite all there” college kids were hanging around.
Because you’re not going to learn people skills through homeschooling and learning by yourself.
“Because you’re not going to learn people skills through homeschooling and learning by yourself.”
You need to go back and read my very first post...you’ve gone off track from my original point.
Yes, and don't forget the early Adlerians, including Adler, were socialists. They had good intentions but had a flawed perception of human nature. Socialists, one and all, believe that humans are born as a "blank slate" and they can made into almost anything those who are influential desire. This is nonsense.
The educators following this have no evidence that it works just a leap to faith that it must on the basis of their conception of human nature. Children will not quit competing any more than adults. They might also take their competition to the moral realm like the socialists and compete for "moral superiority."
Both suppressing ordinary competition and expressing moral superiority are the hallmarks of the current educational system. Remember, the moral superiority is not based on religious convictions but rather environmentalism, affirmative action, multiculturalism and so forth.
Very nice post. There are several ideas in there that — while hardly new to me — you’ve expressed very concisely. I’m going to spend some time chewing over them. Thanks.
Nice try with the dig at homeschooling but all it shows is that you're hopelessly out of touch with reality of what homeschooling is all about and how the vast majority of people homeschool.
Perhaps you could explain, then, why colleges are doing everything they can to attract homeschoolers and why they have a special liaison in their admissions department to deal just with homeschool applicants?
You’re entirely right, homeschoolers never learn people skills because all homeschoolers are only children who are locked in their basements all day. Homeschoolers never ever have the opportunity to be team players or work with others which is why colleges don’t recruit them and they don’t get jobs.
Ooops, wait, forgot to disengage my sarcasm generator.
I was homeschooled and somehow managed to develop people skills. Well, enough to fake it anyway. In college, I was always in high demand for teams and was usually the only “young” person asked to join the team with the older part-time students who didn’t have time for nonsense like the college slacker kids. I managed to get a job, a husband, and a volunterer gig helping put on a fan convention for 2000 people even with my “homeschool handicap”.
I am not talking about socialization such as making friends, sports, behaving nicely, etc.
I’m specifically talking about kids working together on the same problem such a lab experiment or a big project. This is a skill that wasn’t even taught in any school until recently.
There are also kids who will pick up phonics when taught with the whole language method. Not every kid will which is why some skills must be explicitly taught.
And I’m sayin’, homeschoolers know that. We make efforts to teach those skills. You have fallen into the government school mentality that only a government school upbringing can properly prepare children for life. That’s not correct. Homeschooling does a great job.
The proponents of the great WE see a world where no one “applies” for a job. The House of Vocations will assign one.
For example, Equality 7-2521 will be a Street Sweeper.
Even within teams you want the best team member for the task required. Competition helps them to determine what their best qualities are. If they have no idea what skills or abilities they are really good at, how can they bring anything to the table?
LOL!
I don’t believe in government school. :) oh boy
I’m in favor of private schools and homeschool co-ops. I’m not against those who go alone either but not everyone knows what you know. Specialization and comparative advantage also applies to education.
As I think others have already mentioned to you, homeschoolers go out of their way to find opportunities for their children to develop the skills they need. That is the great advantage of homeschooling. Whereas public schools can take years to adjust to changing times, homeschoolers can react immediately to any perceived need. There are all kinds of opportunities for homeschoolers to work together in a team setting and not just on sports teams.
Robotics competitions
Science competitions
Math competitions
4 H Club
Boys Scouts
Habitat for Humanity
Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens
Other Volunteer work
Home based family businesses
Internships/Mentoring with other companies
Those are just a few of the examples I could think of off the top of my head. If anything, public school kids are at a great disadvantage because most of their lives they are incarcerated and are unable to learn about team work.
well you need both obviously. some people take extremes and feel that cooperative learning is liberal because they have seen too many feel-good kumbaya examples.
Quick question, and I’m not trying to trip you up or make you look stupid or anything, but assuming you went to college, what did you study? I’m asking because most of the other people I’ve known who studied engineering or hard science subjects, view group projects a socialist wast eof time. You learn very fast that half the people on your team intend to do nothing for their grade, and have to work twice as hard yourself. You learn to view everyone else’s work wiht suspicion. One case of hideous plagiarism will do that to you. You learn how to document what you did so after the presentation you can go to the professor and explain what you did and what the others didn’t do. You learn to insist that you be allowed to proofread the final documents before turning them in because other students can’t spell or use commas correctly.
Time management was a much more valuable skill than teamwork.
yes but I would like to see this as part of the curriculum.
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this educrat is a SOCIALIST, and is attempting to indoctrinate kids into the same destructive mindset.
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It is time to call it what it really is: MARXISM! ( yes, I am shouting but the American people seem to be deaf.)
This educrat is either a Marxist or a Useful Idiot.
Marxism is our nation´s most serious threat, and our government K-12 schools and our colleges and universities are their most important weapon.
We can survive a nuclear suitcase bomb. We will NOT survive if the Marxist who run our government schools succeed in indoctrinating the next generation of voters.
What to do about it?
Well, first off, forget about reforming the government K-12 schools. They are entirely too infiltrated for any meaningful reform. They must be shut down. Then we must thoroughly reform, shut down existing colleges and universities, and/or open new ones.
Cooperation isn´t learned in school. What is learned in¨”team projects” in government schools is how to slack off and let someone else do all the work.
It is in normal neighborhood play that children learn how to cooperate. It is sad but children today have less and less unstructured, Lesly supervised time for free play with other children, or unstructured time alone merely to day dream. They are too often in day care, in school, or in organized team sports or other after school activities.
One of the major reasons homeschoolers are enjoying so much success is that they have ample time for unstructured play.
I took business management and computer science.
well, what you’re saying is true...but the sad truth is that leaders will be punished if their subordinates screw up. An engineer has to work as a team. I don’t think there’s any way out of this. Part of the job is finding a way to get the slackers to work and you’re not going to be able to learn how to do that from math and physics textbooks.
I’ll tell you how you get slackers to work, they get out of school and find their paycheck depends on their efforts and then they work.
I’m talking about the slackers that end up working with you
Heck, even 3 and 4 year olds know the score. It doesn’t matter if it’s unofficial, and that the coaches, refs, and parents don’t announce it. The kids know the score.
That’s the scary part.
“They recently began a fall soccer program in my area that competes with the one they already have in the spring...but with no scoring, just for “fun.” My son wanted to play but I won’t let him until the spring one. I know I’m probably being a fuddy duddy but the idea of playing a soccer game without keeping score is asinine. What’s he learning? He already knows how to play...but to what end?”
Practice, practice, practice. Besides, by a certain age, the kids know what the score is and who wins. And if they don’t, you can be sure the parents will tell them.
My son’s very earliest leagues were “no score” leagues, but those kids were out there banging shins and having a ball.
If you are the manager, why are they still working for you?
It happens when you clean your room together, make dinner together, set up the Christmas tree together, go hunting together, ...
If you can co-operate and work together on a problem with your own brothers and sisters, I daresay, you can get along with just about anybody.
you have to be able to tell them that if they continue to slack off they will be fired. Yes, it’s not always easy for someone to stick to their guns and say no to a person, especially a close friend.
In other situations they aren’t really slacking off but need to be motivated to achieve better results. And in other situations, they are slacking off just enough to drive you nuts but they are still too valuable to lose.
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