In my last post, I pointed out a few things that I'd noticed about childhood, and school life. And I would suspect you would like for me to explain how I feel it has affected the adults of the world. Well, too bad. Today, I am instead going to explain an experiment I am going to conduct, and some research I am going to do, on the topic of the competitive nature of man.
First, I am writing a survey. Within this survey, it asks for age and gender, which will be used on for collaboration; and it will ask a few questions about different aspects of life. Of these aspects, the ones I am most interested in are relationships and education. Now, I'm no psychology student (yet), but I still feel that this information can be used to determine the benefits and detriments this system has on society as a whole.
I will not only be speaking with regular people, but also with businesses, schools, and other organisations. They will have both the questions asked of everyone else, plus a few that are for organisations only. With the line of questionging, this should determine how embedded competition is within the infastructure of society.
With this information, I'll draw conclusions about the welfare of the populace, as well as attempting to divine a plausible reason. If at all possible, I'll try and find a better solution, but without any experience in this field, I'll need some help.
That brings us to my experiment. It will be a long running experiment, if I can even get it started. I wish to test a idea of mine, though it may be difficult to find voluteers. My idea is that we survived the evolutionary process due to our cooperative nature. When people work together, the best abilities of each can be utilised better then if each person works seperately. As such, Children who work together throughout their education should have a more firm idea of the concepts presented to them, and of how to utilise their own abilities in the execution of said concepts. This basically means that a group of children, about the age of 5-6, would be placed in a group. This group is always together when learning. This includes grading systems like assignments and exams. As such, they'd be held to a higher standard. My thinking is that by the age of 18, not only is this group efficient at thier work, but have the understanding to survive outside of the group... though I doubt they'd want to.
Obviously this is a very strange, and difficult to organise, experiment; with far-reaching possibilities. It is also quite clear, that I haven't done much background research into the subject of childhood development. That being said, this is of course simply in the conceptual stage, and is far from being implemented, if it ever is. I am only posting it now so that I don't forget it, and to see if anyone else has ideas to put forth on this subject, or would like to help me.
The research part is also conceptual, however I should have the rough draft of the surveys in a month or two. Stay tuned to see how it goes.
Until next time - fui fides tantum in testimonium.
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Childhood brainwashing
In my first post, I casually asserted that there is unnecessary competition and conflict in society, with showing proof of my accusation. This was wrong. In order to make up for this, I am here to show you: "My proof of excessive competition in society today". Maybe that's a little long, but it's informative.
Before I begin, I'd like to say that not all competition is bad. In fact, if it weren't for the competitive nature of science, we'd still believe physics was completely figured out with Newton. It's also useful in the market. If there was no competition, there'd be no choice of quality or price. My post today, is about the excessive amount of competition in society.
From a very young age, we are brought up to believe in the usefulness of competition. One of my earliest memories was watching a childrens program, and hearing about a competition they were running. You send in your best drawing, and if yours is the best you win a prize... I think it was a toy of some sort. I spent days working on my drawing, and when the prize was finally drawn, I didn't win, because someone else was better. Far better. It seemed like it was drawn professionally, thought that's probably because of how my mind was. This was sometime before I started school. It might seem minor, but the things children learn in childhood stay with them their whole lives.
In grade 1, we were taught (not directly) that in order to do well, we'd have to be better then the others in our class. This idea is fundamental in society, because without striving to be better then others, we'd only be average (Like everyone else). This also may seem minor, but considering that humans must be taught how to learn most effectively, and it's easiest to learn in you schooling years, this contest for good grades, and approval becomes so ingrained, it's hard to separate it from anything else in life.
Within the classroom was not the only competition. And I'm not speaking of P.E., despite the fact that it's technically not within a room, it is still a class. I'm talking of school houses. In my schools, both primary and high school, there were four houses, within which, every student and teacher was placed. Once every year we'd head down to the oval, and have race after race after race, starting with the youngest, and ending with the eldest students. The houses were given points based on the students who won. Not only that, we were taught different chants, depending on our house, which we'd yell at the top of our lungs, in an attempt to drown out the other teams, and score a few more points.
There was no point to this. Everyone got a little ribbon for participating, and the next day, every thing went back to normal. There wasn't even a prize! This was an annual occurrence for 12 years. 12 years! Then there was inter-school sport, where various sports teams were picked, and sent to other schools to prove that they're better then the others. Competition within competition within competition. Whether or not it was designed to be that way, childhood is a time to confuse us, while we're told to work together, but are rewards for working against each other. The end result is today's average adult, which I'll describe in length in my next post.
Until then - fui fides tantum in testimonium.
Before I begin, I'd like to say that not all competition is bad. In fact, if it weren't for the competitive nature of science, we'd still believe physics was completely figured out with Newton. It's also useful in the market. If there was no competition, there'd be no choice of quality or price. My post today, is about the excessive amount of competition in society.
From a very young age, we are brought up to believe in the usefulness of competition. One of my earliest memories was watching a childrens program, and hearing about a competition they were running. You send in your best drawing, and if yours is the best you win a prize... I think it was a toy of some sort. I spent days working on my drawing, and when the prize was finally drawn, I didn't win, because someone else was better. Far better. It seemed like it was drawn professionally, thought that's probably because of how my mind was. This was sometime before I started school. It might seem minor, but the things children learn in childhood stay with them their whole lives.
In grade 1, we were taught (not directly) that in order to do well, we'd have to be better then the others in our class. This idea is fundamental in society, because without striving to be better then others, we'd only be average (Like everyone else). This also may seem minor, but considering that humans must be taught how to learn most effectively, and it's easiest to learn in you schooling years, this contest for good grades, and approval becomes so ingrained, it's hard to separate it from anything else in life.
Within the classroom was not the only competition. And I'm not speaking of P.E., despite the fact that it's technically not within a room, it is still a class. I'm talking of school houses. In my schools, both primary and high school, there were four houses, within which, every student and teacher was placed. Once every year we'd head down to the oval, and have race after race after race, starting with the youngest, and ending with the eldest students. The houses were given points based on the students who won. Not only that, we were taught different chants, depending on our house, which we'd yell at the top of our lungs, in an attempt to drown out the other teams, and score a few more points.
There was no point to this. Everyone got a little ribbon for participating, and the next day, every thing went back to normal. There wasn't even a prize! This was an annual occurrence for 12 years. 12 years! Then there was inter-school sport, where various sports teams were picked, and sent to other schools to prove that they're better then the others. Competition within competition within competition. Whether or not it was designed to be that way, childhood is a time to confuse us, while we're told to work together, but are rewards for working against each other. The end result is today's average adult, which I'll describe in length in my next post.
Until then - fui fides tantum in testimonium.
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