American authors Ashley Merryman and Po Bronson have written on the science of winning and losing. And they think they have answers for parents and teachers.
Competition
trophies—in sport, spelling bees, and other competitions—were once rare. It was
a rare honor to win. But what about those that didn’t win—the, er, losers?
Currently,
participation is the buzz word. It doesn’t matter if children win or lose, it’s
the participation that is most important. Or is it?
Participation
ribbons, certificates, and trophies are now abundant. Children are constantly
assured that they are winners, just by participating. A regional branch of the
Youth Soccer Organization, according to Merryman and Bronson, issue 3,500
awards each season—each player receives an award, and about 33% receive two
awards. Trophy and award sales are an estimated $3 billion a year industry in
the United States and Canada.
The
authors write about winning and losing experiments on children. A Stanford
University psychology professor, Carol Dweck, found that children respond
positively to praise—they enjoy hearing that they are talented, smart, and
special. But when they “fail” or find a task difficult, they feel “defeated”
very easily. In fact, children would rather cheat than risk failing again. By
age 4 or 5, children are surprising accurate in identifying who excels and who
struggles in their classroom. Those who constantly lose or fail soon give up.
Those who do well feel upset if they are not recognized for their talent, and
if they never or rarely receive praise they soon give up. However, once
children obtain some proficiency in a task, the excitement of real competition may
become appealing. This is more because real competition challenges their
individual talent, and children do not initially see it as a ranking system
against other children.
When
it comes to rewards, if everyone receives an award for participation, then
children are all treated equally. So what’s wrong with that?
Jean
Twenge, author of “Generation Me,” studied American college students. When
participation trophies were given, the cultural message is: to succeed, you
just have to show up. In college, those who constantly received participation
awards in their childhood did the requisite work in college, but did not see
the need to do it well. Their perception is that attendance is all they need to
be promoted. And this carries into the workplace. In fact, in the workplace they
cannot understand why they are not promoted automatically. It’s a puzzle to
them—a problem that they can’t seem to fix. Why? The reason could be because
they never had to fix the problem, or any problem, or strive to achieve
anything before in their life. It was all too easy.
The
authors reveal the science of winning and losing: it is clear, they state.
Awards can be powerful motivators, but non-stop recognition does not inspire
children to succeed. Instead, constant awards can cause children to
underachieve. If children know that they will automatically receive an award,
there is little impetus for improvement. Problem-solving is not an issue
because there is no problem to solve—and that is the problem! If there is no
obstacle, children do not even know there is a problem to solve, and therefore
do not acquire problem-solving techniques.
The
solution is to allow children to make mistakes, to see that it’s okay to lose, and
to encourage problem-solving skills and the desire to strive for improvement.
The authors maintain that the job of parents and teachers is to help children
overcome losing and setbacks, to help children to see that progress over time
is more important than a particular win or loss, and to cease the practice of
giving out participation trophies. Life is more than just showing up.
From “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and
Losing” by Ashley Merryman and Po Bronson.
Comments
Post a Comment