I welcome you to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learners' featured post. One thing that made high school fun for me was the competition, having classmates that I know that the moment I relax they will beat me hands down and the moment they relax too I will beat them hands down with my grades. The competition between me and my classmates was a motivation to read. I hated extracurricular classes that took place after school because I needed my evenings to myself so I could decide what I wanted to do with my evening and also have the time to play football, but then those guys who I knew needed me to lag so they could top me started extracurricular class with our mathematics teacher.
Seeing that he started teaching them topics before they came to class, they had a better understanding of the topic and were participating more in the class. I had to force myself into giving up a few hours of my evening so I could enroll in the evening extra-curricular classes as well; that way, I was also opportune to be introduced to a topic before the whole class and got a better understanding of the topic and what it was all about. Even when other classmates were lost, we were on track. The competition was a healthy one because despite knowing that any slight mistake can result in one topping the other week, we were still friends.
A healthy competition pushes you to do better, but there are times when competition becomes unhealthy, like when a school trended because a student added poison to her fellow student's lunch box so that she would miss school and the other would use that opportunity to top her in class; every competition tends to get unhealthy; it just depends on the people involved. Sometimes it is the pressure and threat from our parents that even force a competition between students to become unhealthy. When it was discovered that she was the one behind the poisoning, she started crying and blaming her parents for her actions and how they threatened her whenever her grades dropped.
As much as competitions force the students to read and do better academically, I think it is the duty of both the teachers and parents to make sure that the competition between students and children stays healthy and they don't go about doing unethical things just to stay ahead in a competition with a fellow student. Teachers need to be fully involved, observe and notice when a competition becomes unhealthy or is starting to become unhealthy because there will definitely be signs.
They are just kids and don't know that there is more to life than just academics; there is more life out there than just results and certificates. They might not know as kids, but as adults that have seen it all, both parents and teachers need to arrest the situation and make them see that there is more to life than just academics, results, and certificates.
