Does competition in schools and colleges lead to higher quality work?

Yes

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by Stefanie Kyak

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History, if we were all paying attention in class during that period, should have taught us that competition is the driving force of our species. From the survival of the homo-sapiens over the Neanderthals, to the Greeks and Romans falling to barbarians, to the European Crusades to Jerusalem, and the American Colonies revolting against England. When has there not been a real-life scenario that has existed without competition? Everyday we compete with fellow drivers on the road while going to work, with fellow co-workers to earn higher positions of power, with our neighbors for better gardens and lawns, with other consumers for better prices and sales, and so on. Without the idea of competition, would our ancestors have survived the ice age or with pre-modern technology? Don't forget that competition is not necessarily a fight amongst our own people. Nature is also an obstacle that has serious considerations and conflicts. As humans, we have and will engineer ways to overcome the difficulties that arises from our environments. We build skyscrapers taller than the last, bridges longer than others, and cars faster than imaginable. How would we ever, truly, improve upon our circumstances if it weren't for the feelings and emotions that competition has inspired in the human spirit?

So, picture an environment without competition - especially in schools and colleges. Picture a world where people, with their own innate determination and motivations, work for the sake of loving what they do. Imagine that children would study hard for a math test or work many hours on an English paper simply because it is their own joy, ability, talent, need, or desire to become educated. If you asked any child, at any age, if they studied because they loved it, would every child agree? Would every school or college bound person agree? The answer is no. Not every person works the same way. Not every person is so easily self-inspired. Isn't that what the Communist and Socialist and Fascist rely on? On the idea that there would be no private ownership, and as a result, no reason for greed; that, a nation of equal people would want and desire to work, whole-heartedly, for the good of others? There are some who might find joy in studying, but gain glory in the idea that they have come up on top. That a student works hard to create something that is beyond expectations; shouldn't that student expect recognition? That feeling is only attainable through a competitive spirit. Valedictorians do not work hard to achieve the highest grades without considering the environment around them. So, why should any of us place value on system of principles that would take away the very ideas that have molded the modern world into what we know today?

Have we become so politically correct that our society should take into consideration that no one should feel bad when they lose a competition? That everyone should be looked upon as equals, in terms of abilities? What may not be necessarily a problem, but a misunderstanding instead, is that the majority of people might have forgotten how we arrived in the present. The Greeks and Romans valued their education of history and felt such patriotism as a result, that historians today cannot deny their undying spirit, left in the rubbles of their city-states that still exist, in extant, thousands of years later. That we have forgotten how the Egyptians would build pyramids and temples more grand than the last; that people in this modern time do not have the capacity to consider the man power, not the mechanical power, to construct at all. It is unfortunate that some people would never reach such heights of competition; that they would be weeded-out and ostracized. Don't forget, though, that our sympathies and tendency towards political correctness for the less unfortunate never allows us forget them. That the stronger would support and encourage the weaker in whatever capacity they may have cooperative learning strategies are practiced here. However, the strongest, undoubtedly, will always survive it is a fact of existence that can't be denied.

The best of us, as humans, has come because we wanted to do better than those before us; and not because we loved doing it. Passion is not, by itself, all that one can use. As a social species, we rely on each other to survive. As a world, nations rely on other nations for resources not natural to their own. Americans work at all hours of the day, in all different and necessary jobs, to support a nation, a democracy, and a home. By taking competition away, especially when considering teaching the next generation to come, wouldn't it be robbing them of the euphoria of doing better and having the best product possible? Don't we all want the best, especially for our children? So, competition is not only the best way for the best work to come out of schools and colleges, it's the best way for all of us to be healthy, happy, accomplished and determined to continue our species and for the survival of the next generation. Competition is innate and always will be.

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