Our schools are a microcosm of the role of competition in our society. They show how competition becomes increasingly institutionalised, normal and expected as we grow up. We turn from playful, inquisitive and creative toddlers into teenagers and adults who are compared and ranked against each other, measured against standardised benchmarks and conditioned to do “better” than others if we want to succeed.

Most people would probably agree that some change over the course of our childhood is justified or necessary. We try (and often fail) not to compare our babies and toddlers, accepting that every child develops at their own pace. At the same time, we accept that when we leave school, in most cases training and education institutions or workplaces will need to differentiate and select to some degree based on our school record.

But these assumptions do not begin to answer a whole range of questions. For example, what skills and aptitudes do individual employers need in today’s world? Are these the same as those our society will need to thrive into the future? How do we best capture and reflect this range of aptitudes and attidudes? How do we measure and recognise effort and motivation compared to talent? How do we best nurture all of these so everyone has the opportunity to discover and develop their aptitudes and interests and engage fully in society?

Education expert and writer Alfie Kohn explored just these issues in great depth thirty years ago in his book “No Contest – The Case Against Competition.” His central argument is that cooperation produces not only better performance or outcomes than competition, but results in more pro-social behaviour and better mental health. Kohn supports these arguments through numerous studies and examples, focusing in particular on education. Here, studies suggest that students working cooperatively tend to solve problems more effectively, develop “higher quality cognitive strategies for learning” and more creative outputs than individuals working alone or in competition against each other. Cooperative approaches improve performance for students of all ability levels, including those who already perform highly. A recent nesta report concludes that collaborative learning improves not only student achievement, but attitude and motivation, as well as the social climate in class rooms. Other benefits include transfer of learning, perspective-taking, psychological health, self esteem and many others.

Whilst most of us in the UK are probably used to seeing some teamwork in schools, individual and relative achievement remain central even at primary school level. Schools group students by ability, award prizes for individual achievement and are ranked according to individual, standardised test scores. Even non-academic achievements are promoted through selective or competitive strategies like displays or awards, implying a zero-sum game where some do better than others. Recognising this emphasis on competition, Canadian education researcher Sue Winton calls for a different approach, one that values diversity, and promotes critical thinking as well as commitment to community and the common good, with the aim of creating engaged and successful citizens.

This is not about simply creating some sort of ‘feelgood’ environment in which children are not challenged or progress is not measured. Instead, the argument is that achievement can be measured in many different ways, and we will need to capture and nurture that diversity if we want to create and maintain a healthy society. Moreover, however you define achievement, collaborative approaches are likely to lead to better outcomes both for the group and for individuals, as the numerous studies referred to above show. And finally, comparing yourself to others is likely to be unhelpful.

One reason for our scepticism is that we are so used to one way of doing things in this country. In his book Kohn highlights an unusual example of an approach to learning and the school environment. He quotes a teacher’s report of his visit to an “unnamed British elementary school”, where the teacher “asked these children who was the smartest among them[.] [T]they “didn’t know what he was talking about. They had evidently never thought about it … There were no put-backs, grades, tests, gold stars. All stories and drawings were displayed on the walls. Children were not placed in failure situations, forced to prove themselves, to read at ‘grade level’ every week””. (1)

This example may appear unrealistic or utopian to some, but it offers a vision of an education system that sets out to work for all children, valuing everything each and every child has to offer. It’s not hard to imagine children in such an enviroment not only more motivated and productive, but happier.

In fact, it sounds very similar to this description of the Danish education system:

“There’s no elite education here, no advanced, or gifted and talented programs. If your child is better than the others at a certain subject, his job is to help the students who are not as good. If you come from a very competitive society – the US, the UK, China, India – that can be a bit of a shock. There’s no competition in Danish education. The kids work in groups. There are no competitive schools you have to fight to get into. There’s almost no standardized testing until the kids are 15 or 16. And there are relatively few tests within the daily school lessons.

In Danish school, your child’s social life is considered what’s most important. Does she have friends? Can she get along with the other children in the class? Does he like to go to school? Does he fit in?

The idea is that if a child is socially comfortable in school, if he or she wants to go to school, then academic success will follow.”

In another example of the benefits of a group ethos and approach, the use of the “eduScrum” method in the Netherlands aims to give students ownership of the learning process. Students self-organise through teams, using the “Scrum” technique, initially developed to enable more effective and flexible organisational management of complex projects.  The eduScrum website shows through videos how this approach is applied in the classroom.  The students identify different contributions and tasks required, allocate and plan these, including through homework.  Teams reflect on and self-evaluate their individual and team performances, identifying ways to improve.  According to the website, test scores are on average 10% higher when eduScrum is used.  Perhaps more significantly, students “take responsibility for their own work, and for the work of the group“.  “You can see and feel the energy … the enthusiasm” explains high school teacher Willy Wijnands.

A different approach is possible. We can achieve both better education outcomes, and happier students, building the foundation for a more thriving, happier society.

In the words of education expert and writer Michael Fielding, the benefits for individual learners and the group reflect a world view which is not characterised by the  “forces of greed, self-interest and fear in a society characterised by significant levels of inequality and privilege”.  Instead they represent a model of “human flourishing … based on freedom, equality and democratic fellowship”.

Notes:

(1) Quoting from David N. Campbell, “On being number one – Competition in education”, p.145.