In the article, “Why Competition” by Alfie Kohn, the author thought to be the country’s most outspoken critic of education discusses the negative effects of competition, he claims competition by its very nature is always unhealthy. To corroborate his claims Kohn displays a variety of information. First, Kohn discusses the transformation that takes place when people compete in group activities, he explains that individuals will turn into team members and possess an attitude of win at all costs. He expands on this idea and discusses the negative impact that has on us; exclusion, hostility and violence, and the need to be better than. He then moves on to discuss the ethical issues of competition and how it leads us to lie and fabricate evidence, …show more content…
Competition with others can cause us as individuals to want to better ourselves and make us strive to improve positively. It allows us to assess what we can change and develop in education and or experience. My colleague Hailey La Fave comments, “ I’m constantly trying to better others and their venues trying to get people to come to mine. This to me, is positive, because everyday I'm trying to better myself with my promoting and helping the venue grow. So my competition results in better sales and bigger shows.” In making this comment, Hailey points out that the competition she feels within her job positively affects her and gives her the drive to improve business for herself and her co-workers. Therefore, because she feels compelled to help draw in more business and make more profit she feels self satisfaction within herself when the company does well. Not only does Hailey’s personal experience illustrate the improvement that can occur within ourselves from competition, so does this quote from Empowher magazine, the journalist Darlene Oakley states, “Wayne Gretzky, Steve Jobs, and Nelson Mandela didn’t become the best at what they did or achieve what they did by staying the same. They worked, and strove, and experienced failure and setbacks many times before becoming the people we now revere them for being.” Darlene is saying here, that empowering people of our nation haven’t made self progress by allowing their faults to stop them but in fact allowing it to help them become the people they are recognized as today and will be for the rest of time. Because of their struggles and feats with competition they have found ways to improve themselves and make contributions to the world. In conclusion, by the motivation from competitors both Hailey, and the influential men have made personal accomplishments and strive to
Every day in our lives, we desire to be perfect to please others. No matter how hard we try, if we do not achieve the concept of being perfect, then we will feel like failure. For example, every year at the Olympics, a newly crowned Olympic champion receiving a gold medal persuades young athletes to worry about winning a medal in every competition they compete. If they do not win a medal in a certain competition, then all their hopes are vanished for the next competition. This action shows how if we do not strive to emulate other people’s achievements, then we will not stand out from the rest of our population.
Today’s economy and the environment are hurting due to the lack of nurture we have been providing. Conventional farming rules the world of agriculture, but not without a fight from organic farming. Organic farming is seen as the way of farming that might potentially nurture our nature back to health along with the added benefit of improving our own health. With her piece “Organic farming healthier, more efficient than Status Quo,” published in the Kansas State Collegian on September 3, 2013, writer Anurag Muthyam brings forth the importance behind organic farming methods. Muthyam is a senior at Kansas State University working towards a degree in Management. This piece paints the picture of how organic farming methods
Simon of Hamilton College along with Professor Cesar R. Torres of State University of New York collectively wrote Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport. As a matter of fact, Professor Robert L. Simon was named to the list of ‘’ 100 Most Influential Sports Educators by the Institute for International Sport’. In addition, Cesar R. Torres is Professor in the Department of Kinesiology, Sport Studies and Physical Education at The College of Brockport, State University of New York, USA. He is a former President of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport. In this book, the research question is if winning is what people ought to think that is important or whether winning really ought to be regarded as a primary goal. Although, their primary method employed in the research consisted of interviews they got a lot of data from empirical observations. The professors found out that sports are a significant form of social activity that affects the education system, the economy, and, perhaps, the values of citizen. The purpose of the books is to describe how participation in sports affects the participants’ values. In addition, they described what personality features contribute to success or failure in competitive athletics. Likewise, this work is related to Professor Pelling’s work because it also talked about how a sport competition can affect directly an athlete life. For instance, this work is relevant to my research question because it explain how
2. Identify situations that you have observed in which competition has actually interfered with people achieving a goal. Is competition emphasized in children? What recommendations would you make to parents regarding their child's participation in soccer, baseball, etc.?
...petitive sports can cause lasting harm and have no benefits for these children (Statsky 627), then examples of how childhood competition negatively affected individuals years after the fact would go a long way to proving her accusation. As Statsky's thesis rests on the assumption that adult imposition of competition and organization in children's sports makes the games neither satisfactory nor beneficial to the children, then lack of benefit must be shown along with lack of satisfaction. The existence of unsatisfied child athletes in organized sports is no indication that children are somehow unsuited to competition and team sports.
In Harrison, competition is looked at as a major cause of destruction. The handicaps are put in place to try to prevent the Dark Ages again by making sure nobody can compete with each other. The General shoots Harrison as an attempt to stop him from encouraging competition and destroying the system they put in place . Due to the extreme measures the government took, everyone attempts to take away the competition. An example of this is shown when Hazel’s encourages a stuttering news reporter by saying “at least he tried”. In today’s society, signs that competition is a major cause of destruction are beginning to show. One example is that some people believe the wrong person was chosen for president and are trying to prevent him from taking office. Today, people will go to extremes to please themselves. Cheating is a good example, seeing how some people will try to disable others to win. Competition is becoming less important, however. At some sports with younger kids, no trophies are given or, in other instances, they will reward everyone with a
Without competition, industries quit moving forward and better products don’t get engineered. It is clear to me that returning our education system to one in which only the chosen few were admitted would actually cause far more damage to society than the danger the author speaks about. If someone chooses to take the necessary steps to achieve greatness, no one should be able to hinder them except themselves. Work Sited Page Henry. William A
There is a misconception that competition is bad, if a child can experience the thrill of winning and the disappointment of losing, they will be well equipped for the reality of life. Competition provides stimulation to achieve a goal; to have determination, to overcome challenges, to understand that hard work and commitment leads to a greater chance of success. Life is full of situations where there are winners and losers; getting a job; a sports game; not getting into a desired college. People need to learn how to cope with disappointment and then to look forward to the next opportunity to try again. Competition also teaches us to dig deep and find abilities we never knew we had. The pressure to win or succeed can often inspire more imaginative thinking and inspire us to develop additional
In Good to Great, Jim Collins discusses major key points companies have used to go from a good company to a great one. He did this by discussing seven characteristics companies should listen and absorb to transition from being good to becoming great. These characteristics included: level 5 leadership, first who…then what, confront the brutal facts, the hedgehog concept, a culture of discipline and the flywheel. Companies who can approach these successfully are the ones who enable themselves to separate from other competing companies. Furthermore, the statement Jim Collins said, which caught my attention immediately, was not in these seven characteristics, but in the first chapter of the book. He stated, “Good is the enemy of great.” This sentence consisting of six words I believed was most powerful throughout the book. Having said this, he discusses how typically companies are satisfied with just good, good is good, no one ever tries to take another step to try and become great. While this book is discussing businesses, it also applies to everyday life; am I doing everything to be great, or am I too just satisfied with good? Reflecting back on past work, school and overall experiences, it came to my attention not all the time did I try and be great, for I was content with good, good was good for me. I never took an extra stride to try and become great at what I was doing. Chapter 1, I felt to be the most influential, it truly grasped my attention and made me think to never settle for just good because someone else out there is taking extra steps to be great. Moreover, while all the characteristics have a significant meaning in the text and assist one another in transitioning companies from good to great, the Hedgehog Concept is on...
I found that much of my free time is spent socializing with friends and competing in numerous sports and hobbies. I found that much of my daily life revolves around competition, from playing collegian level soccer to video games with friends. Competition has always interested me from a very young age when I first begin playing soccer. However, I found there is a distinction between healthy competition and unhealthy competition within my own interests. Healthy competition was doing my best in order to advance and develop a skill or process. Conversely, Unhealthy competition was a sole focus on winning and a trap I have fallen into many times. In the work world today healthy competition can be a monumental tool used to engage and motivate employees. In class we have talked about a company called Nucor that has used competition within shifts to advance technology through innovation and increasing production. I believe my interest in competition and my competitive drive when instrumented in the right environment could be a huge motivator in the future
It is said that there is no such thing as failure, instead we have results. This was the idea that gave rise to the start of a company and later shooting of this video, in the outskirts of Addis Ababa in Africa. The video is about a shoe company called oliberte, which prides itself as the first company to be offered a fair trade certification. The founder, Mr. Tal Dehtiar has appreciated and employed great motivation methods in the growth of his company in a challenging environment (Oliberte, 2011). Motivation’s purpose is to initiate, guide and maintain goal oriented behaviors on the person that it is applied to. It can be driven by biological, social, emotional or cognitive forces. People are motivated to behave in a certain way because it is a core creational component of the human race. The two motivational theories that can be seen in this video are Mayo’s theory of human relations and Maslow and Herzberg’s theory of human needs (Latham, 2007).
...cation and motivation. Finally shared some thoughts on what are effective employees, successful managers, and exemplary citizens.
Competition produces anxiety, which can interfere with learning and disassociates with one’s own body. It is not instinctual because it is taught and it damages people and creates stress in their life. Competition teaches people to give their worst while they only focus on what their fellow mate is doing. I agree with Rubin that “competition limits people’s ability to lead happy and satisfying lives”, for I am assured that competition is destructive to children’s self-esteem, it interferes with learning, sabotages relationships, and isn’t necessary to have a good time.... ...
...nk of as accomplishments that shaped who we are. Measuring ourselves against our personal achievents and the adversity we face is one of the many ways that we can examine our lives and potential. Adversity plays such a big role in our lives that it's almost invisible. We don't realize that practically everyday we face it and set it up to determine who we are going to be. Sometimes people are given a really crappy deck of cards and don’t know how to handle them. When were in a difficult situation, or faced with adversity we have two choices. Battle through it and become an even greater individual because of it or succumb to the situation and give up. It it all depends on how much determination a person has to fight through the adversity and in turn, become a better person.
Yes, it is to a certain extent. Competition is good for us as it challenges each individual. Without competition, there would be no standards and we would not know how to improve on areas we lack. In addition, we may not know where we stand, be it mentally, physically and academically. Different kinds of competition challenge us in different aspects and helps us to progress and move with times.