Competition and Caring

Probably the one concept that really struck me so far in The Dreamkeepers is the negative depiction of competition.  I’m not saying that I don’t think competition is negative, but it’s just that competition has always been such a huge part of my “schooled” life that I’ve never even stopped to think about its drawbacks.  Even the institutions that I was a part of outside of school encouraged competition—I was a key player in the Bible sword drill as well as church-related crafting competitions.  I honestly think that the church hosted these events to get younger people involved, so do we just automatically assume that young people need to compete and have the opportunity to “win” something so that they care? 

Of course, the institutions that I’m talking about were all white-run and primarily involved white people; Ladson-Billings seems to imply that competition is mostly a white American preference.  I definitely don’t think that we can limit competition to one group of people, but it makes me think about the practices that I support (or don’t support) in the classroom as a white person attempting to utilize culturally relevant teaching.  Ladson-Billings states that group work doesn’t necessarily equate with cooperative learning, and I’ve noticed this discrepancy when I’ve been teaching.  We have a table set up so that students are naturally in groups already, but they really resist true cooperative learning.  They’ll end up chatting with each other and they rarely get a lot of good stuff done until they’re under the wire with like five minutes left.  I began the year talking about the classroom community and it being a trusting, safe environment.  I almost wish that I had set up that family atmosphere, like Patricia Hilliard.  It sounds cheesy, but I think that a lot of my students are actively looking for family.  They consider their friends their family, and if their classmates are positioned as family too, they might be more motivated to do truly cooperative work.  There are lots of other strategies that I need to learn as well, but it seems to set a good tone for the year to start out this way.

I do think that one of the ways I try to contribute to this cooperative relationship in the classroom is being a real person with my students.  I have book talks with them outside of class instead of during class time so that I have time to ask them more personal questions and just talk with them instead of it being a structured interview.  I have also made sure to chat with my female students picking their children up from daycare.  I try to learn their kids’ names so that they know that I care about their success in the classroom as well as with their many other responsibilities.  I’ve noticed that many teachers don’t really talk to their students when they see them in the hallways, which sets up the teacher like this force who is untouchable outside of the classroom.  Instead, my CT constantly greets current and previous students whenever he walks through the halls, and they come to visit his classroom on a regular basis.  And it seems that this is where the real caring occurs: a good teacher doesn’t just care about his students while they’re in his class.  A good teacher wants his students to move upwards and onwards, and he is there to congratulate them along the way.