Competitions-- Healthy or Detriment to Character Building

[dsteele]

It's hard to say. It seemed to be a troop mentality. I heard it from both the youth and adults.

 

The district changed the practice from "win and you have to put on the next camporee" to "Win and you're the honor troop." The honor troop got the first choice of campsites and the opportunity (their choice) to put on the flag ceremony and coordinate the event. Some opted to do the whole hog, others opted to just take the honor.

 

The play to lose mentality went away.

 

Unc.

[LovetoCamp]

Thanks Lonnie, This year I have Obstacle Course on my brain. Rope Climb....cargo net....Over the wall....tires....slalom....hurdles....

[red feather]

Reading this thread made me think on something that my oldest son is experiencing in Basic Training (Army).

 

He and his training platoon are now going through their 4th week of training and their 2nd suicide watch of one of the trainees (the first one has already been released). The second watch in 3 plus weeks!!! Makes me wonder about the 'school of hard knocks' or the lack thereof. Could these young men been so socially protected that they cannot face the 'real world' without someone always protecting them and their self-esteem? Could they so unprepared that they just do not have the background to undertake this training?

 

Makes me wonder.....

 

ps: if anyone around this campfire would like to recieve his address at boot camp, please pm me and I will be happy to pass it on and I believe he would appreciate any letters. thanks

 

yis

[Twocubdad]

I agree with the posters who have said that competition can cut either way, but I think that merits some detail. It's like the saying that, "a rising tide lifts all boats -- except the ones with holes." A Scout leader using competition as a teaching tool needs to make sure all the boats are seaworthy.

 

Example: Tiger Cub gets his first PWD kit. He rounds off the corners, shoots it with a little spray paint and pounds the wheels on. He then shows up for the race and gets totally creamed. But he and his dad vow that next year they will have the best car in the district. The research PWDs on the net, they buy the little performance kit at the hobby shop and they polish those nails like surgical instruments. Of course he wins the race, brings home a huge trophy and has his photo in the paper. All is right with the world. He's tasted the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

 

But consider the kid who doesn't have the means or opportunity to improve. Every year he does his best, but it just isn't good enough and he gets pounded. What has he learned? That regardless what he does he isn't going to win, so why bother trying? That "Do Your Best" is baloney? That Scouting isn't much fun?

 

I understand that in the "real world" (I used to hate it when adults used that phrase) competition is competitive. There are real winners and real losers and sometimes the difference means eating or not. Buy too often adults turn kids' competitions into adult competitions. I'm not suggesting that everything be turned into a wimpy don't-keep-score-everybody-gets-a-ribbon PC event. Protecting and building a boy's self confidence (I can't stand the phrase "self esteem") doesn't need to be our number one focus, but it is something to consider.

 

All boys need an equal opportunity to learn the lessons of winning AND losing. Not only do we need to fairly apply the rules of the games, but we need to make sure that the games we pick are fair too. If one week we have the boys run a 100-yard dash, next week long jump, hurdles the week after that, and a mile run the following week, the tall, thin, athletic kid is at a distinct advantage. Scouting provides the perfect opportunity to add competitions relating to first aid or knot tying or other mental activities that balance the competition for all the boys.

 

That's why I really like Raingutter Regattas and am less and less fond of Pinewood Derbies. There's only so much you can do to that boat to make it go faster (save the catamarans and multi-sails). But there is a good bit a boy can learn about how to blow boat to make it sail better. On the other hand, there is a huge difference between PWD cars built by savvy dads -- er, I mean Scouts -- versus the ones build by novices. And once the race starts the cars are literally out of the hands of the boys.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[Fat Old Guy]

Ah, the Pinewood Derby. I had a blast helping my son build his car (he designed it, I used the powersaw to cut it out, he sanded and painted). However, I was always dismayed by the number of cars that were Dad-bilt. I know one kid who said that his car was built while he was at school. He came home and was presented with his car. For him, the PWD was a meaningless event.

 

Everyone has the means and opportunity to improve. The internet is available at schools and public libraries. No tools are required to build a good PWD car beyond a hammer, screwdriver and sandpaper.

[OldGreyEagle]

PWD Competition isnt bad, but when Dad's ratchet it up, its the Dad's actions that are bad, not the competition. Pounder's description of the Camporee proves once more there is always an audience if you give the people what they want. To be challenged in ways they want, not in ways adults think the youth do. The solution? Boy planned events.

 

Gee, this boy lead thing could catch on...

[dozer]

I love patrol competitions. The tougher the better, but no scoring by judges allowed. I ran a pioneering station at a klondike 3 years ago that required you to score things like patrol spirit, how well did the PL do? I want absolute scoring that comes from times or scores and require the entire patrols cooperation to be completed. Doesn't the score reflect PL skill and unit participation.

Some leader scoring 1-10 on the quality of a square lashing doesn't reflect a whole lot. Now lash a ladder that I can climb up and ring a bell ten feet up a tree. score 1 point every time the bell is rung tied and untied in 20 minutes.

[NeilLup]

Game theory is a wonderful thing. If we use it, we can have competition and still have everybody improve their citizenship, character and fitness.

 

In my town, we have the Boston Marathon. They have a great motto "Everybody wins, just some win faster than others."

 

Not every game needs to be a zero sum game. The Boston Marathon is one where everybody can consider themself a winner. The opposite example is the NCAA basketball tournament where 63 of 64 teams lose their last game and have their season end. So those 63 teams can be considered "losers." Our society likes to position people as winners and losers. We are doing our Scouts a great favor if we can teach them to compete, not win, not consider themself a "loser" as a result and even be able to bounce back if others consider themselves losers.

 

So part of the challenge of a Scout leader is to place a high premium on competing and doing one's best. Making sure that the boys understand that the Brave thing to do is to take your three good swings and, if it happens that way, strike out, and not be afraid to try again the next day. We need to be very alert to boys trying things that are difficult for them and ensuring that their good work and effort are recognized and complimented.

 

This is part of the reason that I hate big prizes for Scouting competitions. Typically, the winner gets the big prize and everybody else gets diddely. Alternatively, everybody can get a ribbon with the only difference being the color.

 

Kids can be extremely tough on each other and can work hard to put others down to uplift themselves. This too is an area where we as leaders need to be alert and help.

[ozemu]

Competition - might get my head bitten off here.

 

Society and capitalism use competition in all things. That is unhealthy in many instances. Read any of Stephan Covey books (they rehash a lot so no need to be really choosy) for the detailed discussion.

 

Scouting uses competition - but at a reduced level . The old fashioned play your best not to win type feel.

 

Look at MBs. You compete against a standard. Not against other people.

 

Oath and Promise are a standard also. We all test ourselves against the ideals with an understanding that we will never be perfect in this way. That is the point.

 

Patrol competitions. We use informal ones (single events). The PLC has been asked and do not want a point score kept week to week. I have had trophies for top patrols but the competition only runs half the school term. I have also set challenges where all patrols could meet the standard. If I ran a competition that showed a very dominate patrol I would do my best to even the competition up.

 

District camps. Our competition camp point scoring is vague and I was so disgusted that I did not enter the dates in my diary this year. So I ended up working. There were winners but I am not confidant that the best patrols won (multiple trophies). So what is the poiint in competing when the assessment is unclear. We did our best but lost for reasons that we do not understand. There was no list of things to improve on. Our own opinion is that we did very well - much better than indicated. So how is this healthy?

 

The real world. Teams make the world go around. It is competitive (unfortunately). It is cruel certainly. Scouting should not be cruel. Develop character by all means. Do not allow shoddy work ever but make your Troops safe. Safe to fail and to focus on the learning. If your competitions are not enjoyed by the losers then I suggest that you stop the competitions. Scouting is not the real world just as schools are not. When learning we shelter the student to engage the brain/body at its optimum recieving capacity. We do not expect work or job standard from novices. Our Scouts are all novice adults. They need to learn more than they need to win.

 

Self esteem based on beating others is not the Scouting way.

 

The best game of basketball I played we lost. But heck it was a great game. I have never played so well. If winning was important to me that memory would be a great disappointment.

 

I know my Scouts have got it when the older and better Scouts enjoy watching the younger and less talented win/score/perform. Sometimes they play to lose. Often they invent self penalties so that it is harder for them to win against younger/less talented Scouts or patrols. That way they all have fun.

 

I have seen platoons, companys and battalions pushed to the wall by competitive (for promotion) officers. I have seen stress, mental illness and other manifestations of suffering in the rank and file a large numbers. Battle does that too. After a battle we expect the unit to lick its wounds and retrain. After a years training the unit should be ready for battle - not exhausted, untrusting and unsure.

 

I cannot speak for civil business. But I know that I am earning enough that I can work within principles and that includes giving work to other people and keeping my business within its mission and on core business.

 

When I die I want to be remembered as being producing excellant results and for helping others to do so as well. I want to be rated against standards (many of them of my own creation) not as the best at anything.

 

Competition is not evil. I just do not see much use for competition between Scouts in Scouting. Comparing against ideals is useful in Scouting but that it is really achievement based not score based and so is not competition as I read it.

[mikeb]

It's always interesting how some people come into the Scouting program and immediately apply their ideals and values onto the program regardless of policies and traditions that have endured for nearly 100 years. This is one of those cases. A little internet search of B-P revealed he held competitions at his first summer camp for boys on Brownsea Island in 1907. No one possessing even a litle historical knowledge of the Scouting program would deny that competition has ALWAYS walked hand-in-hand with the Scouting movement. It's worked well for nearly 100 years. Why anyone would come into the program and claim they know better than 100 years of Scouts and Scouters is beyond me.

I hope I didn't wander too far off topic - I guess I should have just said my vote is competition=healthy.

[ozemu]

mmmmmm

 

my views on competition in Scouting are based on my work and upbringing. I am an outdoor educator and I work primarily (as of this year) with severely disadvantaged youth. They are an extreme group and they magnify the normal issues until they thump you in the face a bit. Competition (ie attention seeking/domanding etc) is a main component of the most unpleasent aspects that we address. I see the same stuff in lesser forms in most young people. This is a cultural phenomenum. (did I spell that right?) Other cultures that I have encountered do things differently. What is happening to our kids is not a natural way of living even if it is what you see everywhere you look. and History can be interpreted many ways and my copy of Scouting for Boys is dog-eared. Having said all that mikeb I agree that competition can be useful. It is just that it is not an important aspect of Scouting.

 

Scouting here (I thought it was a WOSM initiative but am probably wrong (BW might know) promotes non competitive activities. We went through a major change to serve this principle in 1973 and have continued the process since. BSA may be different.

 

meanpc I agree mostly with you however since when was the mainstream correct? Change means that people learn and change their minds. I did on this issue. Ask any of your vast number of professional outdoor educators. Read any of the enormous volume of academic work being produced in the USA on outdoor ed. They are your industry professionals and thier ideas should get be considered.

 

At the macro level definitions of recreation (Scouting is a recreational or educational program depending on your understanding is recreational) exclude competitive activities. They are called sports.

 

At the micro level competition is just a tool. We should use it for program purposes not just because it is common or traditional. If you can explain the benefits of competition (mild to extreme) then go ahead but please do not take it as a worthwhile component in its own right.

 

Try a search on any of these terms:

 

adventure therapy

outdoor education

outdoor recreation

experiential education

project adventure

Association of Experiential Education

Karl Ronke

Simon Priest

Michael Gass

 

Scouts is a board member of the Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation over here and also I think of the Outdoor Rec Council of Australia. Probably ORCA USA also. This is because that is our industry body and we are peak organisations in the industry.

 

Sorry for the soapbox everyone.

[mikeb]

ozemu, you're hardly alone in the "long-post club", so no apologies necessary.

I think we can all agree that taking competition to its extreme is undesireable, nobody likes the whole "in your face" routine. Of course many things when taken to their extreme fall into that boat. Reading your post about the youth you work with and the extreme competition they display I got the impression that their instinct to compete came about as a natural result of their situation. We've all seen the movies of birds in a nest, pups in a pack, etc. and how they compete with each other for food and position. To me it seems to be a natural instinct, and while your situation may be an exception, I don't understand why one would go out of his way to stifle it under normal circumstances. I imagine a great many of the worlds greatest achievements/advances would never have come to pass had it not been for competition. Shall I remove my son from that realm because of the possible pitfalls of competition?

You may be right about the WOSM adopting a non-competetive stance at some point in the past. I did some searching (internet based of course) and was unable to find anything. I would be disapointed but not surprised to find that is the case, as it would go along other PC things that have been adopted over the years.

 

meanpc, I agree with the bulk of your post, but your comment regarding seeing no reason to spend more money on the recognition that the winner of an event gets receives a failing grade from me. If you were the superstar at work and found you received the same raise as the worst performer (but got your check in a different colored envelope) how would you feel? It seems so much of the "winners should get nothing extra" attitude here is being looked at from the position of non-winner. Is it ok to slight the winner to "protect" the non-winner? Does the non-winner need to be "protected?" Are we cheating them out of a valuable life-lesson by "protecting" them?

 

Two thoughts for your amusement:

 

Not a competition in the strict sense, but what about Eagle Scouts? I suppose Eagle Scouts should stop getting fancy medals. They are making the tenderfoots feel inferior.

 

In the news today the Boy Scouts of America announced that to align the Cub Scout group with their new no-competition policy they are changing their motto from "Do Your Best", to "Do What You Can." When asked for a comment The National Office stated "we don't want anyones feelings to get hurt."

 

Kind of silly, isn't it?

 

[msnowman]

We have an exceptionally small Webelos den (just 2 boys), so there is very little we can do as far as "competitions" go. However, we have played several games to review what they've learned and such and there is a winner and there is a loser. Both of the boys play sports, one wrestles (definatly a win/lose event) so losing is part of their lives. The only complaint is when (one specific boy) gets too "braggy" about winning (you know, the "in your face" type comments). However, that opens up discussion for sportsmanship. Competition is good, sportsmanship is essential and the best way to learn sportsmanship is to be able to win and lose.

[BobM]

Let me add my 2 cents with our Troop's recent experiences.

 

I've been in our Troop just over two years and recently was asked to be Scoutmaster, the position I now hold. Since joining the Troop, we had not competed in a camporee until just a few weeks ago. During that time the prior CC and SM debated the value of camporee; that plus scheduling problems led to us missing camporee for those two years.

I also recall a discussion at my first summer camp with one of the other leaders about the merits of competition. His view was basically what I've read others say on this thread, "Why does everything have to be a competition?"

For these two years, the patrol method and boy leadership really declined.

 

This year, the new CC and I decided to make camporee a priority. The Troop spent about 3 months preparing including running our own pre-camporee training event about a month before the real one. It was a great event, but one patrol really struggled, not only with the skills, but more so with moral and teamwork. Out of our 9 patrols (yes, a big Troop!), they finished near the bottom.

 

Then comes the real, council-wide, camporee. What a great weekend. It started with the Scouts doing all the work to setup camp Friday night (yes, the adult leaders gave a lot of early guidance, but the Scouts really did it all). The result was that several of our 9 patrols received perfect scores on campsite inspection the next day. Saturday's competitions were also great. Many patrols also received perfect scores at the various events. At the end of the day our DE stopped by to inform me that one of our patrols received top score for our district. You guessed it, the same patrol that finished near the bottom of our training event! You should have seen the look on their face when the announcement was made at the Saturday evening event in front of 2,000+ Scouts, Scouters and parents! The irony is that the patrol leader is son of the leader that questioned the merits of competition nearly two years ago at summer camp!

 

Do you think that did wonders for that PL and his patrol? You betcha. And how about the entire Troop? Well, they couldn't have been happier and prouder. Even Scouts from patrols that didn't score well and struggled through out the day were excited and celebrating as we returned to camp that night. After returning to camp (and at our next meeting), we recognized the great achievement of that patrol but then also stressed that it was a team effort of the whole Troop that really made the difference. Had everyone not chipped in to setup camp, camp inspection scores would have been lower. If only a few had gone to our training campout, our patrols would have been less prepared.

 

OK, what if we hadn't taken first in our district? Well, there were plenty of positive things that came from the experience. The trick to making competition a rewarding experience despite "not winning" is to find those positive things and build on them. Find things that need improvement and make it fun to improve on them. Turn negatives into positive. Celebrate the victories, no matter how small. If the attitude is that there is only one winner and everyone else is a loser, then there is a flaw in the competition. Everyone should be able to "win" in some form or another.

[mikeb]

Hey meanpc, if I'm hurting your feelings you can just say "hey mikeb, you're hurting my feelings." You don't have to scour the internet for some some silly picture in an attempt at ridiculing me. Of course you can if you want but you probably won't get the "ooh that hurt" response you seem to be looking for.

 

With that said let's chat about your post.

 

"I remember when I was a kid, we all noticed what color the ribbon was. It wasn't just a different color, we all wanted the blue one."

 

That's great, I remember some events I attended were like that also. There were also some events that had something a little more special for the guys who won.

 

"Competition is great, but what's wrong with most of the reward being the event itself? The winners get their name announced as the winner and a different color ribbon. They also got the thrill of winning the event."

 

That's all fine, and I never said every event had to have huge trophys handed out by beautiful women. I just think that something special for the winner adds to the excitement of the event.

 

"I guess a large trophy might be necessary for some of the parents living vicariously, but the kids would be just fine with the awards I mentioned."

 

I suspect that's a thinly veiled slam, but let's pretend it's not. First, who said anything about a large trophy? We get those cheesy little trophys, cheap plastic medals, or the doo-dads that go around your neck. They don't cost but a couple of dollars, and the kids love them.

 

"Extra recognition, winning a different award, and the winning experience. Your 'winners should get nothing extra' pseudo-quote is incorrect. Change the quote to 'the unit should not spend extra money on the winners' then we can argue that point."

 

O.K. let's argue that point. Why shouldn't the unit be spending an extra couple bucks on winners? What is it that makes it "not right"? Have you ever asked the boys or parents for their opinion on this? Is everything financial in your unit really calculated out so no boy gets one penny more spent on him than the others?

 

'Mike, I really think you need to go back and read my post - you seem to not have gotten the point I was making. You are really hung up on the "big trophy" aspect, and didn't let the rest of my posts sink in."

 

I read your post again, and will say AGAIN that I agree with the bulk of it. But regarding your comments on award giving, it still seems to me that your point is equal reward for different effort. I reread my post too, and couldn't find mention of "trophy" in it anywhere. So it seems the "big trophy" hang up is all yours.