Playing the game

There's a lot of talk these days about competition, particularly in education.  Some will tell you that you should never, ever promote competition within the classroom.  Others will say that life is competitive, and kids need to learn to both win and lose, so competition is extremely important.  I don't really fit in either of those courts.

If you ask anyone who knows me half-decently well if I'm competitive, their response will be something like, "Terri competitive?  Is grass green?  Is the sky blue?  Did the Bombers completely tromp all over the Riders at the Banjo Bowl?  Does the officiating in the CFL totally suck?"  (In case you're not sure, the answer to all those questions is a huge, resounding YES!)  I don't remember ever not being competitive.  I think part of it lies in a desire to be noticed and acknowledged.  A lot of it is just my personality.  All I know is that as soon as we started getting marks on tests, I would compare my mark to others' marks.

I quickly learned, even in elementary school, who the other top students were.  School came easily to me, so they became the ones I compared myself to.  From about grade four to seven, my main "competitor" was Danny.  He was the first person whose mark I checked.  I also had a crush on Danny.  I'm not sure if I had a crush on him because he was also at the top of the class, or if that was just a coincidence.  All I know is that in grade eight, he seemed to become less concerned with getting top marks, and at about the same time, I lost interest in him (though I still thought he was very cute right up to graduation).

I quickly found others who I could compete against.  The desire to be the best drove my study.  If I slacked off, someone else might do better.  I never wished for them to do poorly.  I just wanted to be better.  And it worked.  When I graduated, I also walked away with the Governor General award.

Then I got to college.  Suddenly I had no idea who was sitting at the top of the class.  The competition factor was gone.  I still made honour roll, but my marks were definitely not what they could have been.

My feelings about being the best have changed somewhat, but I still use competition to drive me.  Not so much at university.  I know that, given different life circumstances, I could do better than I do.  I have had to accept that my marks, even though they are still exceptional, are not what they could be.  But there are more important things in life.

Photo by Ryandavid Photography.

Triathlon, now that's a different story.  I know who is close to me in ability.  Rhonda, a close friend, has traditionally been one of them.  That's us.  I made a copy of that picture with the phrase "Come and get me!" on it.  I gave Rhonda a copy, and put the other one on my fridge as a training motivator.  This past summer, though, Rhonda's work schedule didn't mesh with the race schedule, so I focused on another main competitor - Kim.  Since we're also good friends, I also am well aware of how hard Kim trains.  Knowing the effort she puts in makes me work harder at my workouts.  And I am always conscious of where she is in a race.  In my drive to come in ahead of her, I have pushed myself until I was sick.  I know I definitely go harder to try to beat her.  But if she came ahead, it wouldn't upset me.  It would just mean it was her day.  She had put the work in, and reaped the benefits.

I'm not sure where I learned how to compete without wishing ill on my competitors, without cheating, without being hung up in the win or the loss, but I suspect it was from my mom.  It wasn't from school.  I don't recall it ever being dealt with.  I competed in the local music and arts festival, though, from the time I was six years old, and my mom was almost always by my side.

I won my very first class I was ever in.  I had been playing the piano for only a few months, but I was good.  But my mom always made sure that when I won, I did so humbly.  And lost without pouting or quitting.  I'll never forget my very first speech arts class.  I said my poem.  I didn't win.  I think I got 81 or 82.  (We got marked.  85 was good.  Anything above the was in the exceptional range.  80 was about as low as they would give you.)  I said that I was never going to do speech arts again.  Mom basically told me, lovingly, to not be a poor loser, and yes, I was doing that again next year.  It took some work, but by high school, I was scoring in the exceptional range.

I went to provincials.  I won some provincial classes and lost some.  I learned that marks are subjective.  I learned that, especially once you reach a certain level, adjudications are opinions.  You listen with respect, you take what you think will help you and you leave behind that which won't.  I learned that just because you are the best this morning, that doesn't mean you will be the best tomorrow.  Or even this afternoon.  And I learned not to place my worth in someone else's opinion, because that's all it is - an opinion.  I learned that if someone else beat me, that didn't mean I was a bad person, or even that I was bad at what I do.  Maybe I hadn't given the proper effort in my practicing.  Or maybe, in that moment, everything just came together for the other person in a better way than for me.  Or (as can be the case at festival), maybe the adjudicator was simply drawn to his or her performance more than mine, and it may have been for some reason that had nothing to do with us at all.

I wish, instead of arguing about whether competition is good or bad, we would focus on teaching healthy competition.  Not everyone is competitive.  I understand this.  But there are some of us who are, and telling us that we should be less competitive isn't going to work, nor would it even be beneficial.  That competitive nature is what drives us to be better on all accounts.  On the other hand, teaching how to use that competitive drive in a positive way, to use it to not only be better at what we are doing, but to be a better person through it, now that is a lesson worth teaching.

My Life as a Student

For the past five years, I have been a university student.  About six years ago or so, I decided that I needed a career that would support my family.  As it turned out, that was a good decision as within a few months, I found myself separated and raising three kids on my own.

Being a student has been a great "job".  There's a great deal of flexibility in my schedule, and I can dedicate more time to my kids.  When I found out that I was pregnant half way through my second year, I was devastated.  How was I going to do this?  I still had two more years of school!  I couldn't afford to quit school to raise a child, so I did what most don't even think about (sadly).  I had a baby AND went to school.

Now, I did take a year (that turned into two years) out of the education program, but I stayed in school.  It ended up being a fantastic decision, as it allowed me to take courses I would not have been able to fit into my program otherwise.  If all goes well, I will end up graduating with a double major.  While raising four kids.  On my own.  But I digress.

Being a "mature" student, I have realized that there are an awful lot of things, especially in education, that I have learned on my own in life.  I told one of my profs in my first year that I didn't really think that there would be much I would learn in my ed classes, but rather, I would just learn a name to put to it.  He told me I was probably right, but that I should just suffer through and become a teacher.

It's funny, because looking back on the past five years, in many ways I was right, but in so many more, I was wrong.  Somewhere along the line, though I don't think it was conscious, I started to focus on what I could learn, not what I already knew.  I have been able to delve deeper into my learning because I could connect my own experience to many of the things we were being taught in the classroom.  Since I already had many of the basics, I was able to take the finer details and apply them to my teaching, which I could practice daily.  Another advantage to having kids while taking education - you get to put things into practice right away and use your offspring as guinea pigs.  ;)

Sometimes I come across students, seemingly particularly in education, who sit there and complain about how stupid the class is, and how they aren't learning anything.  (Come to think of it, I hear the same thing in staffrooms when it comes to SAG...)  How sad.  Really?  You're not learning anything?  You are choosing to waste the hundreds of dollars that you put into this course by not taking anything out of it?  Sure, there are classes that are chalk full of amazing things to learn.  But they are like diamonds.  A precious jewel.  Sometimes a lucky find.  I would be great if all classes were like them, but in reality, it will never be that way.

But even in the "worst" class, there is always something you can learn.  If you aren't learning it from the prof, you can dig deeper and discover it through the materials and resources that you are guided to.

A group of students were once talking about a certain prof, and saying how it never really seemed like he was teaching anything.  I realized quickly that it was a class that I had taken, and had really quite enjoyed.  "The prof always tells stories," they complained.  "I don't always know what he's getting at."  Somehow, I think they either missed the first class, or were not paying attention, because I know he told us that this was his teaching style.  And why does he teach that way?  It is his culture.  See, they were a part of the Aboriginal Education class, and the instructor was of First Nations background.  They teach through stories.  The lesson usually isn't explicitly stated, but rather left for the listener to discover.  The teaching is holistic.  So very different from our European education.

What a fantastic experience.  Reversal of rolls.  First Nations students have continuously put into our classrooms and expected to learn the same way as everyone else, when that is not the style they have grown up with.  Now we as students were expected to learn from an unfamiliar style.  Perhaps we could now identify just a little bit better.  If that was all that they had taken away from the class, at least they would have learned a valuable lesson.

In eight months, I will graduate with my B.Ed. and B.Sc.  After six years, my career as a university student will be over.  (Or at the very least, put on the back burner until I've paid off my student loans.)  However, my life as a student continues.  Just as I know I can learn from every class that I take, good or bad, I can learn from every experience.  I can learn from my colleagues.  I can learn from my students.  I can learn from my children.  I can learn from my mistakes, and the mistakes of others.  I can seek out learning on my own.  And I shall.  For if I cease to learn, I cease to grow.