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I really enjoyed this class and think it was a great topic/area to talk about. I’m especially glad that competition and competitiveness were brought up. When we think of competition, what comes to mind (for me at least) is winning or being better at something than others. However, I think competition is much more constructive and valuable when it is more internal. Comparing oneself to others and judging victory or success based on that seems to stray from the very purpose of competition: improvement. For example, if a superbly talented athlete has much weaker team-mates, he or she could be “the” best without being “his/her” best. I think this distinction is very important. I’ve never been very sporty at all and there was more to it than my utter lack of athletic ability. I seemed to me that it was always like being in a prolonged fight. If the focus was on improving oneself, challenging oneself, pushing your limits, we would gain so much more. Like we’ve said many times in class, individuals are all different. Why, then, should we judge ourselves relative to other people? This applies to education as well. I’m not quite sure how applicable this is, but if students could set their own goals, work at their own pace and be judged only relative to their own performance, wouldn’t things be much better. Having said that, though, I think learning to be part of a team is also invaluable, but less so for the competition and more for the lessons learned from working with other people and being part of a team.