Some people believe that competition for high grades motivates students to excel in the classroom. Others believe that such competition seriously limits the quality of real learning.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.
My own position is that generalizations about what is universally motivating to students are mostly meaningless; motivation is a highly individual thing. That said, I think that introducing unnecessary stress factors in students' lives needs significant justification in order to mitigate potential risk. In my opinion, placing undue emphasis on competition between students carries with it an unjustifiably high amount of risk, though I think competition with one's self can be healthy for some students in some situations. In an ideal world, the learning environment of each student would be entirely tailored to fit his or her unique perceptions and psychology; since we live in a reality without sufficient resources to reach that ideal, moderation would be the safest approach.
The individual and unique backgrounds of each student certainly play a huge role in determining what motivates them. Some students are more comfortable with competing with other people, and perhaps this might be a learned behavior or attitude from their upbringing, native culture, or family environment. Humans are also born with tendancies and temperaments which will certainly play a factor in what does or does not motivate them. A third factor is the belief system which the student chooses - not only their religious beliefs, but their individual value system. Some students place a much higher internal emphasis than others on winning, which affects how they are motivated. Competition for higher grades can motivate some students, but it can also deter others from success. The devil is, as always, in the details.
If the competition aspect is between other students as opposed to just with one's self, I feel that there is a great risk in placing too much emphasis on the grade. Failure can be painful enough, but to certain people, the stress and anxiety caused by knowing that all of their mistakes will be on public display to their peers can be truly paralizing. I personally believe that some of the best, longest-lasting learning takes place in a social environment. When students are pitted against one another, a feeling of ire and comparison is fostered rather than kindness and appreciation. This is not ideal for learning.
The final factor why I personally feel that promoting competition for high grades, either competition with one's self or one's pears, misses the point of real learning is that no matter how detailed the assessment, it still can only measure one thing: one's ability to perform on the assessment. While school classes may be bound by syllabi and semester deadlines, and therefore are forced to measure performance in grades, the reality is that real learning is not always - or even usually - so clear cut. For example, one person may perform extremely well on a standardized French test but then completely freeze when needing to ask for directions on the streets of Paris, while a second person might bomb the test but communicate easily and without problems in a real life scenario. Who "learned" French better? The test here failed on some level to measure a student's real learning, and more important than the student's achievement is their willingness to commit to continual future learning. By taking a moderate approach to competition in the classroom we can both measure performance on specific tasks as well as not unnecessarily overemphasize competition, thus avoiding anxiety and animosity between peers.
Ugh. I really hated this essay. If someone were to ask this question to me in real life, I would ask them a whole slew of clarifying questions, in particular of the pragmatic meaning. What is this question really asking? What is its agenda? I have no idea.
Eye. Freaking. Roll.
No comments:
Post a Comment