Sometimes creative works by the students (Blindenschrift, Beatboxing, Daumenkino, Graffiti) become the products for the classes. During the piloting stage, teachers said that they organized exhibitions and chose the best work together with students. And how expedient is it to organize a competition among the works accomplished?
The purpose of performing creative works in class is to get acquainted with new techniques, and try to apply them in practice. And the educational result in this case is represented by the skills acquired by the students. The work done is the evidence of the child’s success in this class. Since all children are different, the works are, of course, different. But how can they be compared on the basis of “better/ worse”, if the goal was not to demonstrate the skills that have been honed already, but to try to apply new knowledge for the first time?
The child is happy: “Wow! I did it”, - and suddenly he is told that he did not do the best work. Is it necessary to do it better than everybody else? Maybe, it is better to make an exhibition and to be glad all together, without evaluating the works: “We never did that before. Today we tried it, and we have succeeded!”
What are the “advantages” of competitions?
- They motivate those (the one) who win (the minority).
- They motivate those who have strong ambitions.
What are the “disadvantages” of competitions?
- The value of learning new experiences is lost. Success is not about making a product, but winning a competition.
- The joy of creativity is lost, replaced by the bitterness of losing.
- They demotivate those who lose (the majority).
- They are based on comparing students with each other, which is unacceptable.
If the students themselves want to organize a competition, the following rules must be followed:
1. The participation in the contest should be exclusively voluntary. First, students shall decide whether they want to submit their work to the competition.
2. The evaluation should not be done emotionally (“like / dislike”), but according to clear criteria that have been worked out with the students before they start doing their creative work.
Of course, everyone wants their work to be appreciated, but always positively. No one participates in competitions and contests to lose. Therefore, a teacher can suggest that children at the exhibition give each work the title “The Most ...” in some nomination. This would help students to form a very important personal result: the desire to see, first of all, the strengths of the people around them. “Es ist viel leichter geistreich zu tadeln, als zu loben” (Wilhelm Raabe).*
And the desire to be the best in every situation at all costs is not a quality that should be encouraged in learners.
* “It is much easier to scold in masterly fashion than to praise” (Wilhelm Raabe (1831-1910), German writer).
