# Cooperation vs Competition



## Elvira (Dec 1, 2011)

Hi everyone :happy: America has always been a competitive society and competition can definitely inspire people to push themselves. Competition is necessary to stand out in the job market. 

However, I feel like sometimes American schools don't value cooperation enough. It seems like in the classes where I learned the most, I had to cooperate with others and work in groups in addition to doing independent work. I think we learned a lot by working together. In contrast, some of my most competitive classes had the most hostile environments and i learned very little. 

This concern comes to me at a time when most people think the best way to improve education is to have teachers and schools battle it out against each other. This competitive business model for education doesn't work out because there are too many confounding variables: poverty, students motivation, etc. 

My greatest teacher put together a curriculum with her sister (also a teacher) and she was fantastic! She has also cooperated with other teachers and to-be teachers. My high school was so successful because there was a great deal of cooperation between all of the faculty.

Do you feel like education needs to make more of a shift towards cooperation? Do you think Americans are inclined to think that competition is the answer to everything?


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## Diphenhydramine (Apr 9, 2010)

I feel that it should, in certain areas. There are some aspects of school life that should be extremely co-operative, where students are graded on their ability to act as part of a coherent social group, rather than any ability to work hard or be clever. For instance I believe students should be punished for ratting on their fellow students (they should be punished, too, if they did something wrong.)

On the other hand, in my experience and in my observation ("having worked in education") if you mix abilities, all you get is the lowest common denominator. In classroom work, putting people into arbitrary groups, or using groupwork when one can do individual work, has the effect only of reducing the top kids to some below average level, without making any improvements on the worst.

The bottom 10-20% of school children are dead weight. They're there because they need to learn how to fit into society and so we know who is going to do the bottom 10-20% of jobs. Making everyone else 'co-operate' with them doesn't work because they're not capable of academic co-operation.4

Tho teachers should obviously co-operate internally. They are working towards the same end, ultimately.


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

Hmm I think that some balance between cooperation and competition is good. In the real life, you do have to compete as there are times not everyone can have the same things (like entering a same course in the same university or getting a job position). But on the other hand, learning how to cooperate is crucial, as it can be very benefic in life. Also, people should learn that having good relations with others, as well as not compete unnecessarily, is very important.

I was never really the competitive type and I'm not very ambitious, but there were times I met some really competitive colleagues in the university, and I saw how they failed instead. In their cases, it was not really necessary to compete as everyone was struggling to end the course. But then they had to compete, even by less honest means, and it backfired on them.


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## Hurricane Matthew (Nov 9, 2012)

...What classes would be considered "competitive" environments exactly? >.> I go to school in the US and I don't feel as if I'm "competing" with other students for anything. I've had to do a lot of cooperative work with other students in my experience, though I don't think they helped much and I find I'm better at working alone as I somehow always end up being grouped up with the dumbest students in my class.

As for competition between teachers and schools, I think that it may be necessary. I've had far too many crappy teachers because they have no motivation to do a good job as their job security is insane. Really, it's practically impossible to get a teacher fired, even when they are found guilty of child abuse/molestation. Schools tend to suck because they are monopolies in their districts and the fact that everyone is required to go doesn't help things, either. Trying to change school districts to go to a better school is actually really difficult to do with lots of paperwork and jumping through hoops... so you get stuck with the fail!school until you move away or get pulled out and homeschooled. My elementary school was so bad my mom had to homeschool me since swapping districts to a better one was made impossible for some reason. Even getting moved to homeschool was something that my mom said was made stupidly difficult. Then when we moved somewhere else, homeschool wasn't offered because it was against some law or something, further limiting education options, and I was forced back into a crappy district school again.

I have to say, I've never been in a good American school and I moved around quite a few times, and I think competition between them would make them better. If one school is doing a really good job, then people will want to move their kids to that school, but it is largely not allowed, which is dumb. If schools competed in quality for students, they would improve their curriculum to appeal to parents looking for good schools and that would help everyone. Their situation as monopolies in their districts just isn't working at all as it makes teachers so lazy and unmotivated, and public school district monopolies may be the biggest issue with our education system that there is. 

It's good that you ended up with a good high school, but I think you're in the minority there.


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## elixare (Aug 26, 2010)

The real world is more competitive in nature though, hence if you want to prepare kids for the real world, I'd say a competitive model is actually more beneficial than a cooperative model since it more accurately reflects how the real world actually operates.

Expose kids to competition from early age => No surprises once you enter the real world. In fact you may surprise those who are not used to competition and hence gain an upper hand early in the game..

Spoil kids with a sheltered, "cooperative" atmosphere => Get ready for some major disappointments once you enter the real world


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## Epherion (Aug 23, 2011)

Ummm, America is slowly moving towards cooperation. Competition is far superior as it breeds better quality and innovation. Think academic Darwinism.


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