I had to dive into this
Wendy said, “[W]hat the bloody hell is so wrong about wanting to be better than everyone else? When did wanting to be the absolute best, not just the best YOU can be but better than anyone else, become such a sin? And why?”
What is wrong with it? Nothing, if it works for you and yours. It’s a value — either you value competition or you don’t or you value it in some contexts or at some times but not others. It doesn’t work for me — competition doesn’t make me happy. I don’t really get how it can make anyone happy but that’s because I’m stuck in my own little head over here.
So let me make something absolutely 100% clear over here — I have no desire to convince anyone who reads my blog to adopt, to homeschool, to write a book, to be Jewish, etc. etc. You do what works for you and I’ll do what works for me.
Now why doesn’t competition work for me? Because I have a problem keeping my eye on my own plate anyway. Because it’s taken a long time for me to understand that really and truly the success and failure of other people has got nothing to do with me. It might be different if I were an athlete (like Wendy’s daughter) and not a writer because being faster than everyone else is a measurable goal that can be achieved by a lucky, talented few (with hard work). Being the best writer is subjective. But I’d rather have my kids running just for the hell of it and not much caring whether or not they’re passing the person next to them because I think that will keep them running happier longer.
I wonder what it’ll be if one of my kids (and I’ll tell you it won’t be Noah if it’s either of them) is a competitive-type. That’ll be hard for me. But I’ll be leaning hard on the grandparents because both the grandpappies are a little more Head of the Class (especially my dad) and they can help be healthy role models around competition (especially Brett’s dad). Me, I’ll just try not to get all Mama Rose about it.
oooh fyi I don’t think there’s anything wrong with NOT being competitive either. Just being entrenched in AP theory for a decade now, I feel like there’s some Competition Is Very Bad conspiracy going on, and well, while my daughter goes WAY overboard sometimes….uh, she was GLAD her BEST friend transferred schools because that meant SHE was number one in reading and math, and now thrills in mercilessly taunting Eugenie with her superior english skills (my kids and their friends are native french speakers)…. well, I don’t think it’s bad to want to be best in class, and I see that desire dissed a lot.
It’s honestly something I don’t relate to as I am one of those gifted kids who were told at 6 they’d be a nuclear physicist and then everyone else caught up to me and I never learned to study right or do anything beyond calculus etc and now I’m screwed career wise for it (there are too many unemployed writers as is) but I know it is WAY important for the girl child in the house.
I don’t wish I had been more competitive in school, or that my kids will be more ocmpetitive than I was– I wish I had been more able to try and reach my own personal best, more encouraged to think of that as a goal, instead of being isolated from the rest or being unchallenged– I was the kid who showed up in the special gifted classes having already read all the books for the year, who quickly learned to shut up because no one knew what the heck I was talking about.
I really wish there had been a way for me to think about how to be my own competition, how to challenge myself not to coast, but to do better, apart from what other kids were doing.
maybe i should start working on my own educational issues and stop spewing them all over your comments!
I think the difference between healthy competition and destructive competition hinges on the interrupted value of the win - is it *doing* better than everyone else or *being* better than everyone else. When we teach our children that winning makes us better than others and it is the besting of others that is the goal that will later lead to privilege, we lead children away from the understanding that hard work and effort lead to better results and that those improved results are the wins in life. This second line of reasoning is what will lead a child to meet challenges through the application of renewed effort and determination - which can be the positive value in competition.
One more word on the issue - healthy competition assumes that it is within the grasp of each competitor to grab the brass ring. That’s called a fair fight. Children who have sopped up destructive competition messages assume that it is their right to win. Winning becomes an identifying characteristic; to loose can result in an identity crisis. Healthy competition breeds respect for your competitors and the understanding that on any given day you may lose or win but you do your best and come back to race again another day - it’s what you do, not who you are. It’s the difference between performance and identity.