The pressures on winners

In this blog, I am in no way judging individuals as I also appreciate that throw-away lines and misunderstandings by students occur far too often. But I also know that in Hong Kong (and I'm sure in all other places) we live in a very competitive and demanding society which must have flow-on effects to the students.

I think that the greatest pressure on my students to be a winner comes from outside. Society and the parents greatly influence the attitudes of our students, and I wonder what happens at home. Competition and the 'win-loss" aspect is overt rather than covert in every student's life. This weighs heavily on their minds and it seems to be creating a generation of people for whom the moral and ethical issues are becoming secondary in the push to win.

The amazing part of this is that it starts early and continues throughout their whole experience. Our school is a "pressure cooker" in many ways, there is a high parental expectation of success and this I think is evident both at school and outside of school. We see this on occasions and it usually takes the form of unexpected behaviour patterns.

I think that one of the first casualties of the pressure to win is honesty in the wider sense of the word. The honesty to themselves is one thing that seems to be lost early, as they feel they must make other people happy as their top priority. It seems to me that this external expectation to win takes over. Early this year, I had a younger student engage in an unethical  practice that was designed to maximise her score in a task. This came as a complete shock to me as she is a competent student with good skills and a substantial knowledge base. The reason turned out to be a perceived parental expectation. I spent time discussing this with her and know that she did not repeat her 'mistake'.

Its not new news, and this article from Stanford tells me that it is widespread, and I have included it for you to read.

I wonder how many other students "think" they have to resort to similar tactics to 'win'?
I wonder how many students slipped through and now see this type of behaviour as acceptable and part of their strategy to win?