Competition Vs. Cooperation

 When it comes to teaching children at a young age I think teaching cooperation is more valuable than teaching competition. Cooperation brings out the “best” in people and competition can bring out the “beast”. One of the main reasons I think cooperation is more valuable is because cooperation helps people achieve more then they could do on their own. Not only does cooperation allow children to focus more on doing well, but it also allows children to share leadership roles, learn cooperative problem-solving tools, and reinforce team efforts. Research has been found that in elementary grades, cooperative students have higher grade point averages. I believe this is tremendously rewarding when it comes to teaching children. This allows children to feel good about them selves and feel more in control of their lives.

When children learn to be cooperative their self-esteem increases, they have a better sense of community, belonging, and acceptance within the world. Whereas I think teaching competition both decreases and increases a persons self esteem. Competition is a rivalry within two teams or positions that produce an outcome of a “winner” and a “loser”. The self-esteem I think increases if you were the “winner” but would decrease if you were the “loser”. Due to that fact the question always comes to my mind, should I only play games that are cooperative so no one’s self-esteem is lowered? This has always been a tough one for me to answer because I do believe there can be a balance between cooperation and competition when it comes to teaching children. Although I wish cooperation could be a main focus I know that in reality it can’t be. This is because life is not always fair and I feel children and students need to get a sense of the reality that is in the world today. There are going to be “winners” and “losers” at every stage in their lives. For example when they are applying for jobs or even post-secondary institutions. In the end I believe teaching children some sort of failure or disappointment will make them stronger individuals in the future. So I believe the best recipe is teaching cooperation with some competition sprinkled in.