Inquiry Project - Competition in High School Education

 

Define your Question	Search Topic: Competition in High School Education
Analyze your topic into concepts	Concept A	Concept B	Concept C
	How / Why does the current educational system leverage competition?	How does a competitive atmosphere effect student learning?	How can we reduce competitive attitudes in classrooms?
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So much of my academic career has been centered around competition. Comparing marks with friends. Seeing who can finish a test 'first'. Seeing who can finish homework first. Getting the highest mark. Feeling inferior to peers because they seem to understand something you do not. Competing for admittance to prestigious Universities. Racing to build a bridge with popsicle sticks...

For my inquiry project, I plan to better understand the role of competition in high school classrooms. I want to understand both the HOW and WHY of competition in our schools. I am motivated by this because my personal experience has shown me that my capacity as a learner is greatly reduced when I am in competition. I do not enjoy feeling ‘rushed’ to solve a problem. I take no satisfaction from ‘beating’ someone. When I am trying to learn, competition creates stress. When in competition, I am less creative - I am so concerned with achieving some fixed goal that there is no room for novelty or any deviation from expectation. This is all to suggest that, in the context of learning, competition may not be the best tool for all learners. Perhaps some students do learn best in competition - this is a question I plan to explore. 

Although I am interested in the philosophical and psychological components of this inquiry, I am primarily motivated by practical application. I want to know what strategies exist to reduce the feeling of competition in classrooms. I also hope to explore how, if at all, we might use competition responsibly in the classrooms.