There are some pros and cons to being competitive, but a competitive spirit is not a healthy one. When you are surrounded by peers who are constantly complaining that they got a 92 instead of 96, it can make you insecure. Being an average student can be irritating when you hear straight-A students talking about how their 90 above grade was not enough. It can create a mindset that is toxic because you see the smart kids wailing about their amazing grades which makes your insecurity shoot by comparison. A competitive spirit might be good for success, but it can also create a toxic and excessively insecure headspace.

          In a school district where all of the kids constantly pine to be in the top 10% or have the highest GPA, it is exhausting physically and mentally. Students have a mentality that if they do not get perfect grades, their future will be left in ruin and disappointment. That is not to say that grades are not important, because they are, but there comes a time where the pressure of achieving academic perfection crosses over the line from competitiveness to insanity.  In my pre-AP Algebra 2 class, there is a girl who always complains that she is going to fail a test or quiz and always says that she has the lowest grade in the class. In reality, she achieves good grades. The teacher always tells her to change her attitude, but it circles right back to negativity and self-doubt all stemming from that cognitive behavior of needing to be competitive. The impact of this competitive culture on average students results in academic trauma for those students working all-out to simply pass.

        Being competitive not only changes a person, but it can also be unhealthy by creating a poisonous mindset. When children are young, they are expected to excel in elementary school. Parents, teachers, and students all assume that each student can get straight As in K-5th grade. But this scholarly perfection mindset gets established and remains in place for the rest of their lives. As students enter high school and the choices of classes range from remedial to college credit, the pressure is placed on each student to transcend. That expectation for straight A grades didn’t disappear with a student ID that says “High School” on it.

Since elementary school, we are taught to think about what we are going to do with the rest of our lives and choose which college we want to attend. How are you supposed to know as a 1st grader what you are going to do with your life? The teaching of these expectations is when the competitive perfection mentality starts. The kids who figure out quickly and plan out what they will do with their lives leave the kids who have no idea about life behind. 

A competitive spirit isn’t itself evil. But an unrelentless desire for academic perfection and the attitude schools instill of intellectual perfection not only can hurt each student, but it can make the entire student body feel like a class of failures.