Competition is bad. This is the overriding message of Kohn's 1980s book on the subject, the oft repeated mantra jumping off of almost every page. I had no great love for competition before I read the book, or so I believed. Sports didn't interest me very much as a child; professional sports are high on my list of mostly useless, terribly overpaid jobs. Racism, prejudice, and wars often stem from an "us versus them" mentality. The race to get to the top of the corporate ladder has many ugly consequences. The pressure in schools to succeed and get the best grades often causes anxiety and breakdowns even in young children. All of these things I knew. However, after reading this book, I came to see just how much competition pervades every facet of American, one might even say Western life, not just targeted areas such as sports, jobs, education, or nationalism.

Among competition's many woes, the one that Kohn repeatedly returns to is the simple fact that competition is structured such that to win, one must hope for another (or all others) to fail. There is no possibility of everyone winning. There is no possibility of doing your best and winning unless your best is better than everyone else's. Assuming that it isn't, which for everyone is true in some area, then you can do nothing less than hope for other people to stumble or fail. That is the best case scenario. It often devolves into actively working towards the failure of others, and can in some cases result in aggression, crimes, or violence. 



Kohn begins the book by challenging many of the commonly held beliefs about competition, which he calls myths. He presents study after study to convince readers that competition is not, in fact, inbred human nature, nor does it make us more productive or build character. He cites examples of cultures in which cooperation, rather than competition, is the norm, as well as studies showing that people, for a variety of reasons, are more productive when working together cooperatively than when they are competing against one another. He follows with many psychological studies showcasing the numerous detrimental effects of being saturated in a culture obsessed with and living by the rule of competing for everything, from parents' love with other siblings, to teachers' and coaches' approval and attention in school and sports, to validation from colleges, salaries, and peers to determine worth later in life.



Perhaps because I was already mostly on his side, but simply lacked the in depth information that he presents in the book, Kohn easily convinced me that even "friendly competition" (a contradiction of terms if there ever was one) is impossible. He compares competition to a drug; even used "in moderation" it is dangerous and harmful.



How does this all connect to education? Competition pervades our schools. The very fact that children are given grades at all teaches them from the age of 4 or 5 that some people are better than others, and that the teachers reward those who are the best (with special stars, smiley faces, or notes such as "great job!" on returned papers or projects). As they grow, children also become aware that it is not only their teachers who reward the best, but that their parents also want them to get better grades than the other kids. It is sad to think that, when a teacher asks a question, there are children sitting with their hands raised hoping that the kid the teacher called on will get the wrong answer, so that they will have a chance to give the right answer, showing their superiority. This happens all the time, in every grade. I know this because I was one of the children who got straight As, who loved it, and who always knew the answer and always hoped (although not maliciously) that I would get a chance to prove myself over and against the others. The way for me to look better, of course, was for others to look bad. There was no possibility of all of us winning approval.



This pressure to beat everyone else takes a tremendous toll on people of any age, children included. Anxiety springs from many facets of competition; children fear losing or not measuring up to their peers or their parents' or teachers' expectations. Having to win approval by performing, and not just performing, but performing well, causes immense damage to children's self-esteem. Children are taught that they are not valued intrinsically, simply because they are people. They are instead taught that they are valued only so much as they can outperform others.



Anxiety also springs from a fear of winning. This may sound contradictory, but upon closer examination we will see that it is not. In a society where only the winners are valid, those who lose are often understandably hostile towards those who win. Envy and contempt arise. Instead of celebrating with the one who has done well, the losers are sore and the one who has won perceives that they put on plastic smiles because culture tells us not to be sore losers, but that in reality they wish he would have failed so that they could have won. The fear of this isolation that comes from being the best often keeps children from winning, even going so far as to purposefully answer questions wrong or, in sports, drop the ball, so that they will not win and lose their friends. For those who cannot bring themselves to lose on purpose (after all, we have been indoctrinated that we must always do our best to beat others) there are a number of ways of dealing with the unhappy effects of winning. Some downplay their victories, preferring not to talk about them, not to share their scores when tests are returned, to try to point away from themselves. I fell into this category; as I got older and experienced the hostility of others towards me when I did well in school, I gradually came to have contradicting feelings. On the one hand, I was happy that I was "smart". Teachers and my father were incredibly pleased. On the other hand, I withdrew more and more into myself, not wanting to talk to others and "expose" myself as better than them, for fear of how that would make them treat me. Another way to cope is to chalk up the feelings of others to simple jealousy, snub one's nose, convince oneself that one doesn't need them, and go on trying to outdo them to prove it. All of these methods are, of course, detrimental to human relationships on both sides.



The stress placed on doing the best in school also leads to such things as cheating, cliques and violence. It becomes clear to children as they progress in school that they cannot all win at the academic game. Some few people always get As, and the rest do not. In order for the other children to feel worthy as people, they realize that they have to find something to beat other people at. Thus we have groups within the school based on sports, other clubs, strength, or other divisions in which the children can feel that they best others. In order to prove their worth by proving superiority, some children physically accost others, steal, or blackmail. 



There is also the phenomenon of group competition, often seen in such things as fund raising competitions between classes or between school sports, math, science, debate, or drama teams. These things may be seen as good because they encourage group work, but they are in reality simply competition on a larger scale. In elementary schools, when classes must compete against each other to win the pizza party, it may promote good relations within the classes, but the relations between the classes are destroyed. It is so very easy to gather in a group to mock, put down, or even assault the "other" group. As far as sports go, it is clear from many studies that sports are not an outlet for aggression; rather, they raise aggressive tendencies for both the participants and the fans. A hard game of basketball may drain the players of energy, but it will not drain them of aggression. It will instead foster the dehumanizing of the other team, the feelings that they need to lose no mater the cost, and all of the ugly cheating, sabotage, and fighting that goes along with high school, college, and professional sports. The fans are also riled up by watching competition, and yell derisive things at each other and the opposing team, damage cars or property, and in some instances in professional sports, begin riots where as many as hundreds of people have died. Even within these groups, solidarity is not achieved. Players received "Most Valuable Player" awards and the like proving that, although they are a team, they are still very much competing against each other.



Against competition Kohn argues that cooperation is productive, building of self-esteem, and possible. Again, he cites examples of cultures that cooperate more than, or instead of, competing. However, not all of these cultures are as cooperative as he seems to put forth; he lists Japan as an example of cooperation. However, the pressure placed on Japanese children to best their peers is, perhaps, even higher than their American counterparts. 



In schools, Kohn argues that cooperative conflict is fine. He states that there will be disagreement between people, but argues that, instead of using disagreement as a reason to compete to prove the other wrong, discussions of cooperative learning could result in which all students are not forced to bow to one answer, but to learn the answers on their own. In cases such as mathematics where there really is only one answer, then all children will eventually reach this point as they discuss and realize where they have strayed in their work. In other cases, however, where there is no one clear answer or interpretation, discussions will open children's eyes to the views of the other students and the teacher, and allow them to learn from and with each other, instead of against each other. The loss of pressure to get the "right" answer would allow students to more fully explore ideas that interest them to really understand them, instead of to simply memorize what will give them the highest score on the test.



The book is not solely about education, and there are many chapters and ideas focusing on how to turn away from competition and into cooperation in all facets of life. The book was helpful for self-reflection on my part, as well as an educating and interesting read.