Pride and Shame: Does Competition Have a Place in Learning?

The day began with an email from a 9th grader who had just received scores on her unit essay the day before. In content and organization (our first two criteria), she had done well, but in our third criterion--style and language use--she had earned a 3 on a 10-point scale. Her email included the phrases, "Even though I worked so hard on this essay my score ... does not exhibit improvement but failure," and "I am truly ashamed of this score, I am sorry." I was profoundly troubled by her use of the words "failure," "ashamed," and "sorry." She had completely overlooked very strong scores in content and organization because of a low score in style and language use. And she was clearly worried that I was disappointed in her. But why?

My wise friend and fellow teacher Susan Adams recommended I read the work of Brené Brown, an author and researcher in psychology. In one of her books, she writes, “Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.” And when I read my young 9th grader's words, that is all I could think about. All she could see were the flaws.

I then began to think about what she had done to earn that low score. Quite simply, she was using a thesaurus to try to sound smarter, but in the process, she was sounding contrived. Interestingly, I had not told her on any previous assessments that she needed to change her vocabulary. Perhaps, then, her quest for perfection was a perceived inferiority in comparison to her peers. Brown also writes, "Healthy striving is self-focused: 'How can I improve?'Perfectionism is other-focused: 'What will they think?'” Does school inherently teach students to be perfectionists?

Later that same day, my freshmen were trying their hand at their first graded discussion. With my 9th grader's words fresh on my mind, I said to them before they began, "You are not in competition with one another. If you notice that the person sitting next to you hasn't shared yet, ask him to share. If you see a connection that a peer could be making, lead her to it and let her finish the thought for you."  I said the same thing to my AP classes the next day as they engaged in panel presentations of independent research they had conducted. And although the students in both cases presented scholarly, awe-inspiring learning, I could hear in their tone and see in their body language that sometimes they were still competing, actively trying to out-do one another; but for what--their peers' respect? my praise? an A?

When I think of all the ways we ask them to compete, maybe I shouldn't be surprised. GPAs. Honor Rolls. ACT scores. College admission. Does that competition blind students to the pride they should have in themselves, or even in one another, for the learning they achieve? Would they be surprised that the most proud moments I have are when I hear the casual comments my students make that reveal the learning they are experiencing, sometimes right in the middle of their perceived moments of imperfection:

• "I'm having a tough time finding articles that answer my question.  I found one source, but it didn't work, so I just gave it to Max because I know he's working on ..."
• "I'm sorry I didn't say anything today in the discussion. It was just really cool listening to what everyone was talking about."
• "I was frustrated because I ended up getting kind of distracted in my research. I found this really interesting article and went off on a tangent reading all these documents even though it didn't really relate to my topic."
• "I know this is really last minute, but is it okay if I change my research question? My sources ended up totally conflicting with what I originally thought."
• "Sorry this is so messy. Can you follow all the arrows?"
• "I never thought about it that way."

I know what some people will say: We live in a competitive society. Not every kid can go to Harvard. Only one person gets the job. The real world is tough, so kids have to get used to competition. But why?

What if every kid COULD go to Harvard (check out Will Richardson if you haven't already)? What if jobs weren't so isolated anymore? What if collaborative learning and thinking and creating became the norm? What if young people empowered one another in their learning? What if kids could be proud of their learning--maybe even their failures--instead of proud (or ashamed) of their grades? Could that change begin in Education instead of Education trying to fit in to the status quo?

As my co-conspirator Mike said to me yesterday (hoping he'll forgive the paraphrase), "It's like I want to give the kids two different grades. One for college admissions so they can get into whatever schools they have their hearts set on, and one that actually tells them what they know and where they stand so they can learn."