Many schoolchildren and students are taught to push themselves and try hard to be better than their classmates, rather than work for everyone’s benefits. Do you think this disadvantage of being trained to be competitive outweigh advantages?

Many schoolchildren and students are taught to push themselves and try hard to be better than their classmates, rather than work for everyone’s benefits. Do you think this disadvantage of being trained to be competitive outweigh advantages?

With instructions from teachers, students now tend to be more competitive in their school life. I would argue that this trend can damage their careers and be harmful to their mental health, despite its positive effect on their grades.

Concentrating on pushing themselves has an adverse impact on learning how to cooperate with others, which will be important after they enter the workforce. Most competitive students only pay attention to their own grades, instead of helping others. In that case, they are more likely to be selfish in their life, presenting obstacles to interacting with people from different walks of life. So, in the future, these students will not be able to play a vital role in the workplace, damaging their employment prospects.

Moreover, this trend also does harm to children’s mental health. As teachers place importance on scores, students are forced to study under pressure. As a consequence, failures, which is commonplace in our life, can make them nervous and upset consistently. Without timely help on emotion, they may not be capable of keeping positive, losing the motivation to overcome. Eventually, they cannot benefit from this trend.

On the other hand, a competitive atmosphere can improve students’ marks with teachers’ appropriate instructions. Since some of them are too young to totally understand the importance of studying hard, being tense from time to time may increase their grades. Teachers, however, need to assume more responsibility since emotion is a double-edged sword and children are normally not mature enough to handle.

Overall, I think it’s more likely to be a negative tendency, unless schools and teachers have well-rounded plans to deal with those disadvantages.