The student news publication of Libertyville High School

Drops of Ink

The student news publication of Libertyville High School

Drops of Ink

The student news publication of Libertyville High School

Drops of Ink

Boys volleyball fights hard against Glenbrook South Titans
Badminton gives their all on the courts against Glenbrook North
Girls lacrosse endures a hard fight against Lockport

“What did you get?”

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Cartoon by Alex Pagura

You can feel it: eyes boring through your head to look at your paper, hot breath creeping closer to your neck. Then comes the question: What did you get?


 

Competition is a wonderful motivator. It encourages perseverance, effort, innovation, and problem solving. No stranger to athletes, competition often energizes sports and is the reason for such dedicated practice. Football, soccer, and volleyball games often have overflowing stands of boisterous fans who want to feel like they have won when one of our dominant teams triumphs.

But what about when it’s not just a game? What if there’s no team to support you? What if you’re judged on your mind or something it created?

The green buzz of intellectual competition permeates the atmosphere of every classroom. From homework to group work to test scores, everything is shared and compared. The students with the best ACT scores are celebrated throughout the whole school. The best projects are boasted about to the class. Examples of stellar work are put on a pedestal in the hopes of inspiring improvement in others, and while those decorated students may burn red in the face, frustration may burn deeper in the students who were not distinguished.

Undoubtedly, there are benefits to intellectual competition. Striving for the highest grades in the class often mean you have to work the hardest. Dedication and conscientiousness are just some of the traits a high-achiever probably has. In addition, social facilitation has proven that individuals will perform their talents at an even higher level of skill in the presence of others. So perhaps for the students that find tests to be a breeze, the fact that their behavior (i.e. test grades) will eventually be observed by their peers could actually make them perform better.

Intellectual competition also breeds creativity. If you want to stand out, you have to be unique. You learn to trust in your own ideas. Realistically, it’s preparation for the rest of your life. Humans judge and compete, and if you can learn to thrive in the pressure now, then you will be well-adjusted for the future.

But the way competition happens here is not conducive to an environment of growth. The need to beat and belittle others in order to feel secure in your own intelligence is not cooperative or healthy. You should feel proud of your work, always. You should feel safe to make mistakes, as you can often learn the most from them.

What about the students who struggle? Or even the student who is consistently second-best, first place just barely slipping through his fingers?

To equitably consider the negatives of competition, it is necessary to look at social facilitation’s evil twin: social inhibition. This states that when in the presence of others, an individual will perform difficult or complex tasks even more poorly than if he were alone. For students who struggle, this makes perfect sense.

Here’s the lowdown of a potentially slippery slope: you don’t understand a concept. You’re too embarrassed to ask the teacher for clarification for fear of being ridiculed by your peers. You convince yourself that you’ll never understand it when you try to study, effectively terminating the chance for you to learn. You fail the portion of the assessment that focused on the topic. Again, you’re embarrassed when people ask you how you did on the test. You say you didn’t study as an excuse to avoid feeling dumb. And you feel a twinge as you recognize that you were the only thing standing in the way of learning.

But that last part’s not always true. The reason for you standing in the way of yourself, for convincing yourself that you couldn’t do it, was that fear. That fear of being ridiculed, that fear of being called “stupid,” that fear of not performing well, even when you gave it your all.

And while I know that story may have been overdramatized, it’s got a lot of truth in its frankness. The vicious cycle of intellectual competition scares people into justifying the slackage from being the best they can be. I’ve certainly experienced this in my high school career, and I know many others have similarly put themselves down at one point or another.

So while competition may be capable of providing pressure, let’s strive for cooperation instead. Let’s teach each other, and support one another, and make everyone feel like they can always be their best.

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The student news publication of Libertyville High School
“What did you get?”