COMPETITION  IN  EDUCATION

It   is not  surprising that  education  and competition are intimately  related. On  one hand,  it  is natural for children to compete and, therefore, understandable that competition is  put  to educational  use. On  the  other    hand, competition may be found  so important  in adult life, that a society especially educates  their young  to compete.  For  instance,  in  Sparta, the  most  prosperous  Greek  city  in  the  8th and 7th  centuries  BC, physical  education  was  dominated   by  contests,  in  particular the  Olympic  Games,   where  Spartans  often  won  more  than  half  of  the  top honors

Marcus  Verrius  Flaccus, a   Roman  teacher   famous   in the  late  1st  century BC , is  credited  to  have  introduced  the  principal  of  competition   among  his  student  as a  pedagogical  aid. He  awarded  attractive  books  as  prizes. The  Italian scholar Battista Guarino (1434--1513)  writes  in  his  account  of proper  educational  techniques,  De ordine docendi et studendi,  that  teachers should  refrain  from  physically  punishing  pupils, and that  students  are stimulated   by competition ,  which  can be  intensified  by  pairing  them  off.

Education  theorists  do  not  agree  on  whether competitive  desires  should  be encouraged  or  constrained. One  theory  claims  that,  since  competition  is  part  of every  culture  and  since  education  should  transmit  culture, it  is  necessary  to incorporate  competition  into  education  to  help  children  get   used  to it  in  later life. Another   theory  views  competition  as  opposed  to  collaboration  and,  therefore, as an  evil  element  in culture that  should be  curtailed. At  school  this often  results  in an  ambiguous attitude  towards  competition, which  confuses  students,  who  will then  try to compete  successfully  without  making  it  appear  they  compete.

It  may  help  to  distinguish  two  views  of  competition.  In  one   view , all  other competitors  are  perceived  as  the  focus  of  competition;  they  need  to  be  defeated.  In   the  second  view , the  focus  is  oneself  or  some  external  entity  (such as  the  clock  or  a  mathematical  problem). The  latter  view is  more  conducive  to teamwork,  which  has become  even more  important  in  modern  society .