The 3 Cs of Childhood

   If you are reading this you are intrigued by what the 3 Cs are; they are components that we are all familiar with from our own childhood. The three Cs are: Competition, Cooperation and Collaboration. All of them are important for well rounded development and I will briefly discuss how all three can be a factor in creating a positive environment for development.

Competition

   I will discuss this factor first because in American society competition drives the culture. If you question this opinion, "the west was won" because frontiersman wanted to drive ever forward, there is a book published every year documenting people's efforts to do things faster, longer or more dangerously than others and competitive sports are a multibillion dollar business - not to mention the new spat of "reality" shows that are competitive in nature. These examples can be used to show the positive and negative sides of competition.
   Don't get me wrong, I would not have improved my own basketball skills or developed my drive, sense of determination and perserverance had it not been for organized sports competition. However, that is not the kind of competition upon which I am focusing.  More and more studies are showing that, although competition between individuals can contribute to the development of qualities like perserverance and determination, it is just as likely that ill will, resentment and a lack of comraderie could develop (especially those for whom winning is unlikely due to other reasons, like innate ability, that I won't address here). 

   There is no place for competition between students in the classroom. It is very important that a teacher helps build community and a sense of comraderie in the classroom in order to create ties between students. Setting up meaningless competitions such as "Table Groups" to facilitate silence and obedience for points doesn't maximize the opportunity for life lessons that can be taught at moments like these. Does it work to pit table groups against one another for
arbitrary points? Absolutely - children love receiving things that result in more recess, toys, or treats. But guess what? So does my dog; she will sit, lay down, and give a high five if going outside to play, her "chewie" or a treat are on the table. Our mission as teachers should be to teach life lessons when we can and creating an environment where meeting expectations in order to succeed in a learning environment can be the goal for our students if the teacher sets up the classroom as such. It can be done, I promise you.

   Competition in the classroom and even in the home, can be set up so that children compete against themselves and their previous efforts.  This effort would require that parents and teachers work with the child to set up goals based upon the expectations and starting from their first or previous effort. How does that look? Let's say a parent wants the child to pick up their toys around the house. Quick and easy way, pick it up or get spanked (undesirable); another way, pick it up and you get a special treat (less desirable but not painful); and a way that develops this sense of competition and self-improvement, give the child a timer and pit their clean up time against a previous clean up time. It doesn't cause them to be disappointed in others because no one else is involved, you get what you want because toys are cleaned up and the foundation for the child to create personal challenges is laid.

Cooperation

   Cooperation is the concept that individuals work together to achieve a common goal. Cooperation is unappreciated in the United States. Yet, an educational paradigm is called Cooperative Education, in which groups work together to meet a goal in the classroom - usually inrriculum and classroom management. Cooperation in the classroom and home is a benefit to the development of a positive learning environment. When children feel they have a role in the workings of the environment they have a vested interest in the success of the environment.

Collaboration

   In my opinion, collaboration is the pinnacle of relationships that parents, teachers, children and their peers should have. The distinction between cooperation and collaboration is that collaboration can result in a new end that wasn't anticipated. For example, it is the difference between a parent saying, we are having spaghetti for dinner - who wants some? and a parents saying, here are some possibilities, we have pasta, chicken, some sauce, what do you think we could make with all of these ingredients? and working through some ideas and ways to make dinner. The same thing goes for the teacher in the classroom. Instead of the teacher saying, Please complete this handout then work on your packet until the bell rings, he or she could say, today we need to learn about adding two numbers, what do you know about adding things? How can we add two numbers? The children feel a part of the process from the beginning. It becomes most clear during projects and performance assessments. I remember talking to a student teacher about their "Bridges of Portland" unit. It would be easy just to present the bridges and how bridges work and then give them a lego model of a bridge and they re-create the bridge (a preconceived result). Instead, you teach the fundamentals of bridge building used to create the Portland bridges, show them the examples and then give them different materials with which to build bridges with each other - with no predetermined bridge to re-create. Much more magic happens when children have some room to investigate and discover. That is the core of collaboration.

   Competition has its place but I do not believe home or the classroom is that place - maybe organized sports is the only appropriate place for it. Cooperation builds important life skills for working with others to reach a common goal but it is collaboration that builds the type of skills that develop community, nurture creativity and communication and results in novelty and personal satisfaction in the creators. I prefer collaboration as often as possible.