I am glad that I agree with mathanxiety on this. We often don't agree, but on this I agree with her.
It's not true that the top pupil doesn't put effort in. Everybody pretends that they didn't revise or do any work etc., but behind teh scenes they did work hard. You don't become a top athlete or top of teh class in maths by doing no training or work. The reason is that in life you are not unique, there are always other people just behind you or ahead of you and they are working hard, so you need to work hard to maintain your position. Maths is one of teh hardst subjects out there, which is why everyone says "I'm no good at maths" etc. and people are described as being a "maths whizz". You may have a good mathematical brain but that doesn't mean it is easy to come top, because lots of other people also have a good mathematical brain.
noblegiraffe, I understand why you believe that praising pupils who have lower attainment but make lost of effort is good, which it is. But you also believe that it is not good to praise teh pupils who get the top attainment, because you believe that it involved no effort. I think that is wrong and is in fact harmful. Can you imagine if no one clapped or cheered teh winner in a 100m race, but only clapped and cheered the person who cam last because they made a lot of effort. What happens in situations like this is that it leads to dumbing down, it discourages the winner from winning because teh winner sees praise going to those who tried but didn't win. This is at the heart of progressive thinking. It is political and it is done for a reason in order to level down and discourage excellence, winning and competition.
I now understand why you think like this. It has been part of your teacher training education. I lloked into the StarPower game that influenced you and which you think is good.
"When I was teacher training, we did an activity called Star Power which has stuck with me throughout my teaching career."
StarPower is a simulation game that aims to teach what is a good society, how power corrupts, how competition leads to power and how to be a good citizen. It is classic progressive thinking. It's a game but it has political objectives. This is an article by its creator. It is called "Creating a New school culture"
www.stsintl.com/schools-charities/articles/creating-a-new-school-culture.html
He doesn't want to modify the old school culture, he wants to create a new school culture. It is implicit that the old system is wrong, that the traditional system was wrong. There'll be no back to basics in teh new system. This is almost revolutionary. But what was wrong with the old system and what does he want to achieve with teh new system?
The old system was traditional, conservative and individualistic. It was teh American system. The new system is progressivem and collectivist, not the traditional American system, but a new system. New Labour would love it.
This is the progressive gobbledegook that he wants
"Creating a school culture in which each staff member, teacher and student feels safe, valued, productive, and creative."
as if this is not already part of the old system.
He wanst to reduce conflict and reduce competition because he thinks that competition can lead to conflict. He spells out what is not good about American culture and what he sees as one of its main flaws is its individualism. He prefers collectivist societies. He thinks that individualism leads to comepetition and conflict and wants a safer collectivist society which is more group-based than individualistic. It is more socialist than capitalist. To get that society competition has to be discouraged because competition leads to individulism and teh individual winners would expect to be clapped, cheered and praised for their attainment. That type of excellence and attiainment is individualistic, not collectivist.
He says
"Group identity can be a force that helps people within the group work more productively, gives them purpose, and helps them feel safe and valued."
"f we want to create conflict in a simulation, one of the easiest ways is to encourage individuals and groups to compete. We often think of competition as simply competition"
"Competition between persons or groups is by far the easiest way to create conflict.
"As a culture, participants in the United States are ready to race. We've got our feet in the starting blocks ready for the starting gun at almost any time. All you have to do as a simulation designer is fire the gun. In fact, you don't even need to fire the gun. Say "bang" and everyone will take off down the track. We love competition. We can't get enough of it. It invigorates us?makes us feel alive. I'm sure they'll find that pheromones are created when we compete. It's the American way.
Competition, like identity, is a two-edged sword. It can motivate people to accomplish physical and mental feats beyond their normal ability; but it can also be destructive?pitting individuals and groups against one another?creating dangerous and unproductive conflict.
There are three ways to mitigate the negative effects of competition. One way is to encourage individuals to compete against themselves, compete against nature or compete against machines. The FIRST program in which students create robots and the robots compete against each other is an outstanding example of the kinds of competition that can create esprit de corps in the school and meet the educational goals of the school as well.
In the No Child Left Behind program, school competes against school; classroom scores against classroom scores and sometimes student against student. This is the kind of competition that creates conflict and bad feelings. It makes it so that almost no one can feel good about what they've done. It encourages the staff members, teachers and students to compare themselves to other staff members, teachers and students.
I think it would be so much better if the competition were changed to person against self. In other words, measure individual progress instead of group progress. Encourage students to compete against his or her self. This would allow and encourage students and teachers to take pride in his or her accomplishments and encourage one to do his or her personal best.
I?m not against all types of person against person competition, when approached thoughtfully, as there are can have beneficial effects. Chess, for example, is the prototypic person against person competition. But Maurice Ashley,teaches chess in a way that helps students learn that losing a game is an opportunity to improve, and not a cause for shame. He uses the chess experience to teach other valuable lessons as well. He?s very careful and aware of what he is teaching with Chess,. So it?s not the person to person competition per se that I believe creates conflict and division even though I believe that more often than not they do not help students feel safe, valued, productive and creative. But I think it would be good if we were thoughtful about the type of competition we?re encouraging. Most of the benefits of competition can be achieved with person against self, nature or machines.
A second way to mitigate the potential negative effects of competition is to avoid focusing on the scarcity of the resource ..."
Why does any of this matter? It matters because it is against individualism and competition and excellence. Individualism is freedom, not groupthink. It matters because this collectivist system is intended to dumb down teh aspirations of teh brightest in order to level them down to the average of teh group. This system doesn't want outliers and excellence because tehy threaten teh group. It is "tall poppy syndrome". The highest must be lowered. Undemocratic, unfree societies love this type of collectivist groupthink because they can cut teh tall poppies down to size and control teh population, which is why Stalin executed many generals who were successful, because these poppies grew too high.
Being against competition and Competitive ranking and not praising the tall poppies is part of progressive dumbing down.