Associate
fully agree on this one. competitions creates a drive to achieve, which is what we should be teaching kids. it's a societal problem we currently have though, can't have winners and loser, but also a lot of young workers you meet just expect everything to be delivered on a plate while wanting to earn the big bucks.I had a bit of an "argument" well that's too strong a word, but disagreement maybe with some of the staff at my kid's school.
They're planning a sports day and they want to give everyone medals for turning up. I said, what's the point, that doesn't help build up competitive spirit and wanting to improve or be better than others. Competition is absolutely necessary to learn for children, to make them realise they have to work hard to achieve something. And losing is part of life just as winning is. Giving them a "prize" for just turning up sends the wrong message and creates soft entitled people in my opinion.
Possibly not a popular opinion, but anyway I told them I'm telling my kids not to accept a "turning up" medal, and only want them to get a prize if they deserve it.