I'M A LOSER, BABY--SO WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME?

 

Last night, I attended a fabulous community meeting--the kind of gathering which restores your faith in mankind to solve our common problems. Part of  an initiative called  Michigan's Defining Moment, it was an assembly of community leaders across my county: a local college president, a mayor, business leaders, a district judge, a school superintendent and local government officials. The meeting was facilitated by the publisher of the local newspaper, Rich Perlberg, who invited me. Our task was to help devise action steps in a structured plan toward rebuilding Michigan’s educational system, economy and government—a plan created by input from over 1500 Michigan citizens.

The evening flew by in rich conversation. It’s exciting to hang out with smart people, and talk about the huge issues and challenges facing a state we all love. There was a moment, however, when a thinking gap emerged for me, between my 30 years’ experience as a teacher and what the other citizen-consumers of public education there believed.

It came as we were discussing educational goals, listing actions that would make Michigan schools more responsive to global changes washing over our industrial economy. One businessman suggested “inject more competition into public schools” as an action goal. I first assumed he meant more competition for public schools: schools of choice, charter schools, possibly vouchers. But no—his complaint was that there was not enough competition in daily interactions in our classrooms and school buildings. He mentioned spelling bees with second chances and science fairs where everyone won a ribbon.

From the nodding heads and further comments, it was clear he had tapped into one of those things lots of people assume about education: competition is the only way to improve student performance. Participants scoffed at no-loser games in gym class and dodge ball-free recess. Finally, someone said “It’s good for kids to lose” and there was murmured assent.

While increasing competition in schools didn’t make it into our final list of proposed action items, the conversation bothered me, all the way home. I thought about how every person in that room was, demonstrably, a winner—and how their own children, carefully raised, would learn to lose gracefully, but would also have their share of shining victories, and parents whose resources would support music lessons, travel teams and even tutors to keep that healthy balance of striving and success.

In every school, right from the get-go, there are kids who see themselves as losers. Life has already taught them that other kids are smarter, faster, prettier—and they have deeply internalized those lessons. They understand that they can’t be the best, or even among the best. They can rationalize it as bad luck, or push back by refusing to try (since they’d only fail), or they can build little social networks of fellow losers. There are, of course, about ten thousand movies built on the premise of the defeated collectively striking back at the victors—from “Bad News Bears” to “Wall Street”—just in case any junior losers with time on their hands want to pick up tips from prospective models.

Deliberately increasing and emphasizing competition in schools (where there are far more subterranean rivalries and daily informal academic contests than the casual observer might suppose) is hardly a solution to our biggest educational problems in Michigan, which begin with the state’s largest district, Detroit. The graduation rate in Detroit hovers around 25%, the worst in the nation, and all the robotics challenges, basketball championships or trophies in the state aren’t likely to budge the entrenched sense of futility that young men and women living there experience. In fact, if there were ever a place where young children’s sense of themselves as winners should be nurtured, where small egos should be fed and made to feel capable, it would be in high-needs schools.

In the end, we chose an action goal for education that centered on inspiring change and experimentation in our schools. We can change and grow Michigan's economy by focusing on our strengths--and we're more likely to reach #1 without having to sort our kids into winners and losers.

Comments

[Mary Tedrow]

Great post Nancy and what a wonderful opportunity for Michigan to shape their own future. The thinking-gap between you and the other community leaders came, as I'm sure you know, from your 30 years of interacting with the entirety of your community represented by the presence of every child, rather than just the winners who made it to the top of the heap. Once you're on top, there are only other winners of the race in that rarified air. I am convinced that pitting student against student in a race for the top prizes is not just detrimental to our children but to society in general. Who says there is only room for 10% at the top? The hope of resolving problems like the ones that Michigan and other rust belt states face (and probably the rest of the nation very soon if the economic predictors are any indication) is in cooperation and sharing, not in besting each other in a race for a few brass rings.

[The Science Goddess]

My dissertation is based on achievement goal theory---do we learn for the sake of learning...or do we learn for a grade (or blue ribbon)? Most of the research I've looked at shows that competition is not good for learning or student achievement.

I think what your well-meaning group might have been thinking of was more along the lines of self-esteem. Even then, I'm not so sure that competition would increase that.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Mary and S-Goddess,

Thanks for posting. I think the nice parents in my group were conflating competition and self-esteem, actually. As good parents, they wanted their kids to be competitors --not so they would feel good about winning, but so they would learn about effort and persistence. To them, competition was their motivator.

It's hard for people who have had considerable success in a competitive atmosphere (such as running for office) to understand kids who don't respond to competitions as motivators.

They were looking for more contests and competitions in daily classroom practice.

[Bob Heiny]

You said, Nancy, "It's hard for people ... to understand ..." Perhaps "they" think about the world differently from having to "understand."

[Nancy Flanagan]

Hey, Bob.

I suppose you're right. It's in my nature to want to "understand" what motivates all kids, because a class full of kids who are comfortable with taking academic risks is a class full of kids who will be learning. Whereas kids who are placed in competition for artificially limited recognition will progress more unevenly--some kids going full-tilt, others backing off.

After our meeting, one of the members of the group mentioned that one local high school no longer has a single valedictorian or top ten, preferring to recognize a larger group of high-achieving scholars. The man said "What is there to work for, if there's no top ten?" completely missing the point that for 95% of the kids in this HS class, being in the top ten has never remotely been an option. Getting into a decent college, maybe. Improving a grade point, certainly. Learning a lot more, definitely.

Competition does work well for some kids, in terms of stimulating great effort. But winning the award quickly becomes more important than the goal of being a strong scholar or a passionate learner.