“No Competition” – More Brilliance from the Left

Just when you thought more dumb ideas couldn’t come to the foray in our education system, enter from stage left, Alfie Kohn. Claiming his views are “supported by research”, he is pushing the concept of “No Competition” in Canadian schools. Roy Green spoke with him Saturday.
Update: On his Sunday Show, Roy Green interviewed Chris Wejr, principal of Kent Elementary School in Agassiz, BC. You can listen to it here (beginning at 11:00). Wejr is a big supporter of Alfie Kohn’s “No Competition” philosophy.
Here’s a pertinent and related article. And here’s the e-mail I sent to Green about Mr. Wejr:
I’m in absolute disbelief at what the “educator” has just said. He clearly has no grasp of the modern reality that Canada is in a fierce competitive battle with nations like China & India. In those nations hundreds of millions of children are pushed to strive to be better & work harder. Here we appear to strive to not push too much. If we translated this to a hockey match, our team would lose every game 20 to nothing.
If your guest’s words were played for parents in Asia they’d be convinced that it was satire such as we’d see in The Onion. Frankly, so do I!

On a personal note, may I share with you that a few years ago I dated a lovely woman from mainland China who had relocated to Vancouver. I’ll never forget a conversation we had early on in which she said that in many ways Canada is more socialist than China. Of course, the patriotic hairs on the back of my neck immediately jumped up! But then she explained about private health care being widely available if you want it, much more of a competitive spirit in education, and a whole lot of other examples. The views of Mr. Kohn and Mr. Wejr vividly reminded me of her prescient observations.
Incidentally, in contrast to Kumbaya Central (aka Kent Elementary), here’s a recent editorial from a Chinese-American mother who is almost certainly representative of the mindset in households in Asia. She has already received Death Threats. Likely from those “hateful conservatives” who would adamantly disagree with her, eh?! You know, the same folks who despise competition, hard work, and accountability. 🙂

79 Replies to ““No Competition” – More Brilliance from the Left”

  1. What happened to that guy’s balls? Seriously, where are all those emasculated men coming from?
    Oops, silly me, I forgot…our education system.

  2. I just read his essay defending political correctness.
    While I sympathize with the fact that for him, high school was a unending gauntlet of humiliation, filled with wedgies, swirlies and purple nerples, that’s no excuse to become such a simpering mangina.

  3. This is a very strange perspective. It essentially means: No Evaluation. By oneself or by others.
    But the human brain is a rational function; that means that it is geared to and must constantly evaluate.
    Evaluation means: to observe several entities/actions, analyze these entities and actions, and come to a conclusion about Which Is Best.
    So- I evaluate whether I will eat a cake and icecream for lunch or a tuna sandwich. I select only the ‘best’ oranges at the market. A test evalutes whether the pilot who flies the plane on which I am a passenger has the ability to do so or not. I evaluate whether I should yell and scream at the politician or attempt to vote him out. And so on.
    This act of evaluation is an act of making a judgment within a competition-of-choice. I get to choose whichever action or thing I judge ‘best’. Kohn is also, with his rejection of evaluation, saying that I have no choices in this world. Since I cannot evaluate what is before me and cannot permit these different actions and things to be in competition for my selection…I have no choice.
    Now the question is: are my conclusions universal, i.e., necessary to the species or social and specific to the society? A bit of both but the necessary is aligned with the social.
    Kohn, for example, rejects praising children for behaviour ‘well done’ because that would turn them into ‘praise junkies’. But socializing a child is a necessary function in a species whose knowledge base is not genetic but learned. It enables the child to evaluate his own behaviour – and that of others within that society.
    Very strange. He, like so many of the left, lives in the utopian imaginary world – a world without evaluative differences. The real world, however, is quite clear about its differences – and ‘the best apple’ wins!

  4. Those who have followed my comments over the years will recognize that I have asserted for some time that the left is all about eliminating competition. Competition is bad! Immoral! Leads to winners and losers. Winners have bread. Losers do not. Losers are entitled to bread!
    I find this attitude astonishing as the left embraces the environment and “nature” – which is the most unfettered, chaotic, fully competitive identifiable system. Perhaps the left’s ethic is that nature and the environment should be managed – a command environment, supporting a command economy?
    There is a political trick here: knowing that absence of self-confidence invokes the emotion of fear, to gain the political alliance of those who fear competition one espouses a system which is free of competition. Fear is assuaged.
    The problem is, without competition, creativity is blunted – there is no reward. Advances that better society dwindle… eventually the balloon deflates into a bleak, uninspiring greyness – except for those elected and promulgated by the political elite that sells the fear-assuaging anti-competition balm.
    Competition is harsh. But necessary. Get over it.

  5. Humans are complex creatures. Some, particularly boys, love competition. Many people are cooperative team players. Others prefer to work quietly by themselves. In the real world, a good parent, business or school will attempt to develop the individuals strengths while also helping them improve in any areas of weakness, not enforce the fashionable flavor of the day social science concept. Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

  6. Another utter idiot in the educational field. I was in competition in high school to be selected for aircrew in the Air Force, and I competed at every level to get my wings and to get promoted through several ranks. Anyone who followed this idiot’s views would sure have made it easier for me to get ahead since I am competitive. I had the competitive spirit instilled in me all through school at all levels. I’m lucky I didn’t have this principal.

  7. I disagree with Mr.Kohn,in his “perfect world” there would be no competition,and most importantly, no competitive people,and that’s where his theory falls flat.
    Competition IS part of human nature,and if we don’t prepare our kids to compete,they are going to always lose out to those with a more aggressive nature.
    Mr.Kohn wants a society of Eloi,where we all love one another and NEVER compete for anything! It seems like a type of warped socialism,and I wonder when he’ll get to the part about WHO is to overlook the system to ensure there IS no competition,the “intellectuals”,as I’m sure he views himself?
    I’m afraid the man is just another purveyor of dreamy old-style hippie theory, but behind it all is just another attempt to control the fractious peasants.

  8. Of course the progressive left want no compitition, they never win unless the deck is stacked in their favour.

  9. apparently he didnt read Desmond Morris “The Soccer Tribe” or the “naked ape” or observe any children or other humans

  10. To me the guy isn’t worth an inquiry but I wonder if he has a nice place to live. Street people compete. If you think you don’t, life is going to rock your world.

  11. Doesn’t work for dogs, doesn’t work for children.
    Positive reinforcement has created our greatest minds, and our greatest performers.
    If the goal is to remove negativity from the education system, he’s going at it in the wrong way. Improving the self esteem of a few under achievers, at the cost of hobbling the brightest in our society is not acceptable.
    In case no one remembers, there were some experiments done in the public school system in the 60s and 70s. My high school had one “open classroom” with no marks, no exams, no homework, and no success. There may be some value in having this as an option, but why in hell would a kid who wants to be a doctor, or engineer participate in such a program?
    In the end, instead of individuals losing self esteem because another receives awards, entire blocks of the education system will have to endure ridicule and disrespect.

  12. Mr.Kohn’s ideal world of non-competition reminds me of the Japanese Herbivores phenomenon.
    “In Japan some call them herbivores, and on Saturday nights they come out to graze: a perfumed army of preening masculinity. Groomed and primped, hair teased to peacock-like perfection and bodies wrapped in tight-fitting clothes, their habitat is the crowded city where they live in fear of commitment, and the odd carnivorous female who preys on them…
    Japan’s twenty- and thirtysomething males seem disinterested in careers and apathetic about the rituals of dating and marriage. They spend almost as much on cosmetics and clothes as women, live with their mums and sit down on the toilet when they pee. Some have even been known to wear bras. “What is happening to the nation’s manhood?” wonders social critic Takuro Morinaga. ”
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japans-generation-xx-1704155.html

  13. Just read his article on aggression and the guy hasn’t a clue about human nature. The usual BS about primitive cultures being peaceful ignoring the fact that there hasn’t been one intrinsically peaceful primitive culture found yet; among the Yanomano?sp 60% of males die by violence before they get very old.
    It’s simple evolutionary biology that aggressive genes will be passed on more readily as the primary role of war in primitive cultures is to raid other tribes for their women as well as settle old scores. Why people can’t see the obvious is beyond me but I suspect it’s another example of someone who lives in an artificial reality thinking that if they just believe in it strongly enough it will come to pass.

  14. In nature competition is called life and death. You win, you eat, you live. You fail, you starve you die.
    Humans developed complex games to practice winning and yes even losing so we could preserve ourselves and our families.
    I am sure this “researcher” knows this, he just prefers to live in the utopia where lambs and lions all sing together at the local United Church and where they share a cup of herbal tea.
    A great life so long as someone else is paying for it.

  15. Kohn is in some sort of existential denial. The very sperm that fertilized the egg that became us, was done by competition. The fastest strongest sperm one.
    Kohn would have us all become the Eloi in from the novel “The Time Machine”, but he, for some reason left out the fact of the ‘Morloc’ who are always present and ready to eat a few Eloi for lunch.
    The man is a fool or he is simply getting his fifteen minutes here.

  16. There is a B.C. school principal on Roy Green Show at the moment explaining why he has instituted a no competition policy in his school. Where are the parents?
    This theory falls in line with the Senator from Quebec who is trying once again to get a no spanking law passed through the Senate. this theory also falls in line with UNESCO’s thinking that parenting should be shared between the state and parents.
    Destruction of the family and total control by the state is the ultimate aim here.

  17. I wonder if Mr Kohn would remove or withdraw his name from any award or prize for his work or research

  18. “We compete because we’re raised that way, not because we’re born that way.”
    This was an assertion made early on in the interview. I had to go back, and make sure I heard it correctly. And, quite frankly, I cannot think of a more fundamentally flawed premise that this gentleman draws his conclusions from.
    Competition is human nature. Lethbridge a couple posts up puts it best — competition is survival. You compete, win, eat and live. You lose, starve and die.
    To suggest that competition is not a fundamental part of the human condition is delusional, at best.

  19. Ken, I’m also listening to that now … and shaking my head in absolute disbelief about what the principal is saying. I will update this thread with the podcast of this segment as soon as it’s available.
    Here’s what I just e-mailed to Roy:
    I’m in absolute disbelief at what the “educator” has just said. He clearly has no grasp of the modern reality that Canada is in a fierce competitive battle with nations like China & India. In those nations hundreds of millions of children are pushed to strive to be better & work harder. Here we appear to strive to not push too much. If we translated this to a hockey match, our team would lose every game 20 to nothing.
    If your guest’s words were played for parents in Asia they’d be convinced that it was satire such as we’d see in The Onion. Frankly, so do I!

  20. Education is not a ” hard ” science, so the research done in education is not valid for forming policy. In hard sciences, theory is validated through controlled experiments, followed by publication in a scientific journal. When enough researchers have obtained the exact same results for the same inputs, the hypothesis or theory is considered valid.
    Because humans are not machines, controlled experiments can not be performed in education, and this difficulty can not be eliminated through randomized experiment design ( as is done in agricultural research, for instance ). So, if a researcher ” discovers ” a new relationship in education, you can’t be sure than an uncontrolled factor wasn’t responsible for the success ( or failure . In short, you can’t even be sure whether the education input you’re studying ( such as competition, or abscence of competition, or anything else ) has a beneficial or harmful effect on students. The researcher himself can introduce bias into the study by choosing a test group that will produce the result wanted regardless of the effect of the input putatively under study.

  21. Another thought – how did Kohn get to be a principal if there was no competition? Oh wait, tenure and union rules…

  22. Education has been ruined by administrators trusting such new ” research ” , and who overturn time-tested teaching methods, replacing them with the latest theories coming out of the colleges of education. The
    education of children is too important to be the plaything of the avant-garde.

  23. Robert – the left answer to your rejection of competition with, eg, China and India, would be that IF ‘competition’ was not allowed, THEN, there would be no conflict in the world!
    Competition is seen by the left as a particularly ‘white’ and ‘western’ form of behaviour. They utterly ignore, as Loki has pointed out, that competition is basic to all human societies, from the simple hunting and gathering bands to pastoral tribes to industrialism.
    Why, in pastoral tribes such as the Masaii and Dinka and others – there is fierce competition among the males for the females – competition by painting faces, by feats of bravery – and by wealth of family.
    Competition, as I tried to explain before, is an aspect of the necessity to evaluate oneself and others and one’s environment. You have to evaluate and judge ‘what should I do’ and ‘which is best’. To assume that all behaviour and all things are identical and therefore need not be evaluated – is behaviour even the most simple organism on our planet couldn’t get away with.
    Oh – and be warned. Obama is moving, now, into education. He’s going to ignore the economy; he’s failed at that – his stimulus didn’t prevent unemployment from going over his declared ceiling of 8.5% and his deficits are massive. So, as he did by leaving Clinton to explain policies, Obama will leave the economy to others.
    He’s now moving into education, and like his Tuscon speech, which was all about ‘getting along with each other’ – and that included reducing criticism of Him and the Democrats…he’s moving into the hope-and-change ambiguity of education.
    Watch what he does; it will be more ‘getting along’, more reduction-to-the-lowest-denominator, less competition, less entrepreneurship (which is all about competition)…And a diversion from the real problems of the US, into the amorphous emotionalism of ‘hope and change’. Watch him.

  24. Before long it will be against the law to show any traits that may be construed as human.
    We must purge the left from our government, our schools and our lives in general.
    It may already be too late.

  25. I truly believe you folk could use a resident Socialist (I would do it if Kate asked nicely). Every time I read your assertions about “the Left”, I shudder at the thought that you’re using that same brain circuitry discussing your own ideologies.
    If you really valued freedom of expression not only would you value a marketplace of self-regulating expression, but you would disagree with one another on occasion and correct one another when you spew ignorance and stupidity into the marketplace. This means, generally anything you say about the Left (i.e. in this the Left’s view on “competition”).
    The Left has no problem with meaningful and fair competition. It does have a problem with monopolistic casino capitalism and the bail outs of the rich. Ironic the you folk squirm at the thought of socialism for the poor, but continue to uphold an economic system that shamelessly practices socialism for the rich. I’ve said it before, capitalism is the greatest impediment to free market competition we have ever seen. The consolidation and polarization of wealth and power has never been greater.
    More troubling are the uncritical, unreflective remarks around here pertaining to human nature, evolution, and natural selection. Is competition human nature? Is competition the same as evaluative and discriminative perception? What role does culture play in directing, redirecting our so called natural propensity for competition? Do members of individualist vs. collectivist cultures perceive and participate in competition equally? Is shaming and completely humiliating your opponent as is typically the case in sports and other competitions natural?
    There are likely few here that have more education than I (not to suggest that that in itself should be considered self-evidence that I’m right), but I will say that although I started my Phd confident that I knew some things, I learned by the end that I really don’t “know” that much. In fact, often times the questions posed are actually much more important than the answers because the question prefigures and circumscribes the answer.
    The confidence and assurance with which many make pronouncements around here makes me at once both terrified and envious. Wish my world was as “obvious” and self-evident as yours.

  26. Shaken: excellent post which included the paradox of the nature-loving left not wanting competition with which nature is soaked.
    Criticism:
    My wife gets edgy when I make a negative assesment comment to, say, a server in a restaurant. My rebuttal, as a businessman, is that the nicest thing you could do to the owner is to give him constructive feeback without which he could lose business without really knowing why.
    She will then point out that “it’s not the server’s fault”. True, BUT: the server’s tips will be hurt by bad food and he/she therefore has a interest in relaying this key info to the owner.
    Praise:
    Two nights ago, in Vancouver, I made a rare visit to a high quality burger joint. While paying I told the owner that a friend had sent me to a rival high-end burger joint a while back but that I had concluded that his was the best burger in town, handsdown.
    I was shocked by his BEAMING VISAGE. He thanked me profusely, twice, for my “kind words” and this after 26 years of successful operation.
    The libtertarian in me screams: Separation of education and State. No public schools. All private. Parents wanting their children to be taught in a competition-free environment will be free to sign up for one — in a competitive free market. And, no, not vouchers: abolition.

  27. “Competition IS part of human nature,and if we don’t prepare our kids to compete,they are going to always lose out to those with a more aggressive nature.”
    dmorris your right, but the term aggressive is so passe to those that have been in charge of social engineering the last while. It’s more civilized to be passive pass the buck and let someone else think. The positive thing is if your kid can think on their own, move their behind, and give a crap well it’s not hard to rise to the top, it’s like racing vegetables brought into this world by useful idiots. That’s why the elite have to continually change the rules to make the results of their preceding idiotic policies look like something that was at least close to correct, and not the pile of gobbledygook they usually turn out to be.
    I’m pretty thankful my kids had many teachers, that would laugh at ideas like Kohn’s.

  28. Bill Stewart comes on here and informs us ignoramuses that he has a Ph.D. and then goes on state that capitalism is a failure and socialism is far superior.
    That states volumes about Dear Bill.
    He also stated that “The Left has no problem with meaningful and fair competition.” Not true. A key component of Leftist philosophy is Equality of Results. This is a well known FACT so why come on here and be so incredibly mendacious, Bill?

  29. bill stewart: whew – speaking of confidence and self-evident assertions, you sure do make a lot of them.
    What is ‘self-regulating expression”? That certainly is not what a ban on competition means.
    You refer to ‘meaningful and fair competition’. I’m sure you realize you must define ‘meaningful and fair’ for that statement to make any sense.
    What is ‘monopolistic capitalism’?
    You refer to ‘bailouts of the rich’. Explain. Then, you are on to ‘socialism for the poor’. Explain – both ‘socialism’ and ‘poor’. Yes, you have to do that otherwise you are stuck in ambiguity. Same with ‘for the rich’.
    Then, your ‘capitalism is the greatest impediment to free market competition’ is quite an astonishing assertion. Capitalism IS free market competition.
    Then, you ask: is competition the same as evaluative and discriminating perception’? Of course not! They are carried out by different agents! When two young men are competing for the attention of a young girl, the girl is evaluating and discriminating. When a designer is creating a landscape design, he is competing with himself to better his previous – or competing against others to win the job. He is being evaluated.
    Then, you are on to ‘individuals vs collective cultures’ – asking if they participate in competition equally. The collective cultures, which are tribal/socialist, compete fiercely against other tribes. And, within the tribe, there is fierce competition for various goods and services – particularly for women. Individualism, however, is repressed; the group dominates.
    Oh – and this is why collective cultures are unable to adapt and didn’t move into industrialism, were unable to develop modern technology, science, medicine, agriculture and so on. That repression of the individual; the repression of the desire-to-do-better.
    Finished your PHD yet? I, and others here, finished ours long ago.

  30. Bill Stewart
    “The Left has no problem with meaningful and fair competition.”
    Yeah sure……..Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler, Che, Chavez, Lenin and Stalin had very similar policies to deal with their competitors…..an estimated 100,000,000 competitors in the 20th century alone….that’s meaningful……

  31. Kohn believes in a future, perfect, earthly world where perfect amity among people reigns. Where have we heard this before?
    The question is, does Mr. Kohn blame also blame society’s travails on capitalism, and, specifically, does he believe society is composed of 2 classes, the “Haves”, a class that is materially comfortable, and who oppress the other class, ” the Have Nots “. It doesn’t sound like he goes this far, but the ” all our troubles could be so easily solved if we would just re-make society using a few simple rules ” is a conventional left-wing view. So is the utter abscence of any sense that such a thing as human nature exists: man, in the left’s view, is infinitely malleable; ” a blank page on which beautiful characters may be written “.
    Me No Dhimmi offers a great solution: private schools. Bad ideas would not be adopted if the parents had a say in their child’s education.

  32. schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught
    Gee, can’t imagine how it’s come to this.

  33. Actually, Bill, I played a lot of sports and a good coach/parent never allows ” shaming and completely humiliating your opponent”. Sportsmanship and learning to be a good winner (and a good loser) is one the important lessons. This is why, at the end of the game, teams will shake hands.
    You do have a point about bailouts and other crony capitalism practices that are now erroneously associated with free-market capitalism. This is neither exclusively a right-wing or left-wing problem, it is a political problem. You can’t tell me that places like China and Cuba don’t have kick-backs, regulate competition out of business and reward friends and family.

  34. The Left has no problem with meaningful and fair competition. It does have a problem with monopolistic casino capitalism and the bail outs of the rich.
    That’s what I kept telling myself when Obama bailed out the Union pension plan at GM and stiffed the investors.
    I said to myself, “This allows GM to engage in meaningful and fair competition with Ford and Toyota”.

  35. Ken (Kulak): “Destruction of the family and total control by the state is the ultimate aim here.”
    Yup, you’re right, Ken.
    That’s the Left’s agenda in a nutshell. Strong families have high expectations of their children and abhor government interference in the upbringing of their kids.
    Leftist governments have low expectations of everyone so that they can then “help” to “fix” everything.
    ‘Recipe for disaster.
    This idiot principal is no “pal” to his students or society (but I’ll bet he’s hauling in a hefty salary with gold-plated benefits). Like Colin in Mission BC said, competition is the difference between life and death, otherwise we’re at the “mercy” (good luck!) of the government.
    NO THANKS!

  36. Shaming and humiliating your opponent is the natural result of any social competition. Wolves have a very well structured and successful social order. What could be more humiliating than walking around with your tail between your legs? I may seem cruel, but it’s been working since well before the dawn of man.
    LC- Shaking hands after combat is a nice touch. It allows the vanquished to hold his head up, and pretend he accepts the result with no regrets. Make no mistake, the shame and humiliation can only be washed away by passing it on to another opponent. Eventually, some one has to live with it. It’s as if there’s a finite amount floating around, and each of us tries to hand it off like a hot potatoe.
    This guy believes it’s better to share it equally, but like money, it always ends up in some hands and not others.

  37. often times the questions posed are actually much more important than the answers because the question prefigures and circumscribes the answer.
    End quote:———
    Nope I doubt that the progressives could answer the questions thus they use their loopy circular logic to assert the answers are immaterial becaues the questions are the answers. See I can think like a progressive I choose not to thou.

  38. Warfare is one of the greatest stimulants to industrial, technical, scientific advancement. The pressure to survive war and win is a great incentive for human ingenuity. Compare the state of weapons going into WW2 with the ones coming out of it, notably the atomic bomb.
    Without competition life ends.

  39. Perhaps he is just trying to prepare 90% of the students whose parents won’t be eligible for party memberships and special party schools for their kids.

  40. Schools are starting to pass kids into the next grade whether they’ve learned anything or not. If schools won’t acknowledge failure, why would they acknowledge success?

  41. Kathryn, here in BC they’re not just “starting” to do that. It’s been going on for a loooooong time. The other day I had dinner with a high school teacher and a high school principal. Neither of them could remotely be described as “conservatives” but both of them were appalled by this practice. Yet they’re powerless to stop it.
    They then went on to tell me how such kids that are “passed onto the next grade” have very low self-esteem because they feel like dummies all the time.
    As I’ve stated multiple times before, Leftist policies have infected our academia and the results have been disastrous. But no one is held accountable … which is also a big part of the Leftist doctrine.

  42. Not surprising, I am in the resort business in B.C and most of the teens I hire have atrocious grammar and communication skills…its truly pathetic what I am witnessing. How are these kids ever going to compete in today’s job market. This is a direct product of these liberal educators. God forbid a student is ever told that he has to pull up his socks or meet structured grade expectations. When these students look back after shoveling shit somewhere for 30 years they will know who to blame.

  43. Well, well, well, if it isn’t Bill Stewart. With breathtaking confidence and assurance, he writes, “The confidence and assurance with which many make pronouncements around here makes me at once both terrified and envious. Wish my world was [were: this is a subjunctive, Bill] as ‘obvious’ and self-evident as yours.”
    Speak for yourself, Bill.
    And this, I believe, is the same Bill Stewart, a self-confessed Christian, who claimed, here, a couple of weeks ago, that he could discern no connection between “Christian authority” and “reason”. I made a reasonable parry, which included mentioning the intellectual brilliance of Pope Benedict XVI and asking Bill what kind of Christian observance he followed. I also said that if I didn’t believe there was a connection between Christian authority and reason, I wouldn’t be caught dead being a Christian. So, I asked him why he was still a Christian.
    What were this apparent PhD’s answers to these simple questions? So far, I don’t know because he didn’t bother to respond.
    And, speaking of competition, it’s altogether clear that Bill Stewart is, indeed, very competitive: he obviously believes he’s quite superior to “many . . . around here”. He said so himself.
    The arrogance and hypocrisy of people like Bill takes one’s breath away.

  44. I’m a teacher: what Robert said @ 6:56 PM.
    Self-esteem is earned. When high standards are set, and when our kids are given the instruction, structure, and discipline needed to achieve theses standards, students thrive. ’Too bad that, now, high standards, instruction, structure, and discipline are frowned upon by the educational establishment (and too many infantile parents).
    The lame-brained educational establishment, all left, all the time, just thinks it’s too much hard work to challenge kids. These lefty numbskulls are right about the hard work—but NOT challenging our kids is going to end up in a lot more hard work and a huge amount of heart ache later on. And not just for the kids.

  45. A good libertarian is always on the lookout for hybrid terms, “social justice” being one of many. Nope. We’re for JUSTICE, un-modified, one word, 7 letters.
    Soon to be Doctor Stewart uses the phrase “fair and meaningful” competition. On guard! Who says what’s fair, what’s meaningful?
    Murray Rothbard in For a New Liberty: A Libertarian Manifesto makes the cogent observation that government monopoly of a public service like education necessarily causes conflict no matter what the school policy because a significant number of its users will be dissatisfied.
    Only recently have I moved away from the voucher idea, which Milton Friedman strongly advocated. Vouchers from government would bring with them “rules and standards” concocted by the bureaucracy.
    If NOT abolish public schooling (the ideal) at least REFUND the per-pupil cost of public education to the private-school-choosing parents to avoid duplicate payment.
    That single act would cause an instant improvement in public schooling and this un-natural nonsense would simply not obtain.

  46. Robert, I didn’t know that this has been going on for a long time. Our family finished with the school system almost 9 years ago (goodness me, when did my kids get that old?) and it wasn’t done in their schools.

  47. I’m not sure of that your perspective of sport is universal, coach. First, there are many different levels of sport – competitive leagues, fun leagues and an excuse for drinking afterward leagues. The depth of feeling after a loss really depends on what your reasons are for playing. Second, maybe it’s different for girls or maybe I’m just not overly competitive but I never felt ashamed or humiliated after a loss. Finally, in my experience, it is a certain type of parent and coach that are guilty of making kids feel truly humiliated about a loss.

  48. The further one goes in the education system the narrower one’s focus becomes. Myopia as displayed by Bill above is one of many possible outcomes. Having intensely studied one field and then extrapolating that knowledge (and in some cases, wisdom) into other unrelated fields is the height of folly.
    We had a saying when I was an undergrad, “that’s so stupid only a professor could believe it.” It’s not surprising that academia hasn’t significantly changed.

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