Cooperation vs. Competition

[mtscholar]

I'm in education, and the assumption that students should be competing with one another for a limited number of top grades, rather than learning now to cooperate with each other, is so deeply ingrained in minds and society that it scarcely sees the light of day. What a potentially happier place school at all levels could be if cooperation, with the proviso that everyone contribute in some way appropriate to their interests, abilities and perceptions of the project, were the norm. Take it out a step further into the workaday world. At what general soul age level will a culture have to arrive before the very nature of competition among human animals can be seriously examined?

A dark though intervenes: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Do we have to let the memory of Marx's dictum scare us into never looking again at cooperative models of learning and working?

Just wondering, prior to breakfast.

[Nancy]

Or

I'm in education, and the assumption that students should be competing with one another for a limited number of top grades, rather than learning now to cooperate with each other, is so deeply ingrained in minds and society that it scarcely sees the light of day. What a potentially happier place school at all levels could be if cooperation, with the proviso that everyone contribute in some way appropriate to their interests, abilities and perceptions of the project, were the norm. Take it out a step further into the workaday world. At what general soul age level will a culture have to arrive before the very nature of competition among human animals can be seriously examined?

A dark though intervenes: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Do we have to let the memory of Marx's dictum scare us into never looking again at cooperative models of learning and working?

Just wondering, prior to breakfast.

Or, before I go to bed here at the edge of the world, gee thanx ;-)

It actually *was* cooperation before competition when and where I went to school (70's).  As I worked in education both in the US and here,  I realised how LUCKY I was to have that type of experience compared to what my children have been subjected to.  (That being said, NZ is less competitive than the States, but its going that way with the NZ version of NCLB aka NCEA). 

As far as soul age, I would hazard a guess at Mature, so in the next 30 odd years or so, I think? (Dave/ John where are you when we need you??? -- sleeping?) 

But think about the recent hullabaloo in the US about socialised medicine being some kind of horrible concept.  Certain factions freaked out.   Now again, with experience and now experiencing socialised medicine, I gotta say both have pro's and con's in practical application (as do most human constructs will)...but if you have a society based on competition, it becomes so ingrained to all levels.  It is a very American thing - and I seem to recall it came on full force in the early 80's (Reagan presidency).

Blessings
Nancy

[LoriS]

A "limited number of top grades"??  Does this mean only a few students can earn high grades, no matter how all of the students in the class are doing?  What if 75% of the class earned "top grades"?  I don't get this concept of only a few top grades being available to the students.  If I had to compete against others at the same time I was trying to learn, I'd leave that school.  Seems I remember only competing against myself when I was in school.

[Wnbriz]

Apparently there is two ways to teach and learn, the didactic and the socratic method. The didactic is the one society has adopted as its primary, which is just dispersing the information catalogued in textbooks to students from teachers with the intention that the student will remember everything when the situation calls for the information to be provided. The latter being socratic which intends the student to pull the information from within, and disperse it outwardly when the situation calls for it. The teacher then becomes just the one who asks the questions that arises the embodied learner to question content against truth in his own self reality and provide his own answers. It's the only way mastery could exist. No competition, just cooperation is necessary.

[jk]

Lori, if I went by what I see being told to my children by their teachers (secondary school in UK, year 11), I would guess that it's about limited number of top places to go to after school - such as prestigious universities. Therefore, I can say that here in supposedly Mature Soul UK, I am seeing the same thing. I keep trying to temper the amount of stress I see the school to place on my children. My 16 year old daughter is already achieving really well, in pretty much all her GSCE subjects. She got 7 As or A* and 3 Bs in her mock GCSE. Now she is being pressured to get pretty much straight A*s or "at least" As.