Should children be taught to be competitive?

This was the subject of debate in my living room earlier this evening.

I was in the affirmative, blue corner.

In the red corner was my mother, a public school teacher.

Now common sense should dictate you don't challenge a teacher on education (just like you don't challenge a feminist on abortion), but I've been challenged on business and economics often enough to make it a free for all.

I believe that children should learn to be competitive because the world is competitive and they need to be prepared for it. The proposition that this is not the ideal situation is irrelevant. What is relevant is that an army of social workers, teachers and child psychologists can't change it.

Life continually presents things that people want. Sometimes there's not enough to go around and to teach children that they shouldn't compete for life's goodies is to set them up for failure.

By competing, I don't mean bullying or using force. I mean playing the game by the rules- and doing it better than your opponent.

The opposing argument is that there is already so much competition in a child's life, and that a classroom should be a sanctuary from it. This sounds reasonable, but can be counter productive.

If a child is stressed out about having to compete, it may be because they are not very good at it.

No shame in that, school's there to make kids better at things.

It is argued that children need to learn how to be collaborative and mindful of others. This is true, and it is complimentary to the need to be competitive. The US/UK could never have won every single war they have jointly entered if they could not work together. The Adelaide Crows would never have won two AFL premierships if they couldn't work as a team and weren't mindful of what their teammates were doing.

Indeed, in sport the debate is not being had. In sporting situations, the talented children are encouraged to soar as high as they can, and to lead teams that can win. They are punished for cheating and anti-competitive behaviour as they should be.

Works fine if sport's your thing.

If it's not, you may have a problem because the mass culture of this country does not encourage competition in other fields. Schools, to be fair, only reflect that.

I have an idea about why this might be.

In adult life it's not a big deal if you can't kick straight, so people who can kick straight don't intimidate Joe Punter. He's pleased at their success.

In adult life it is a big deal if you are unable to negotiate with your employer, perhaps because you're not articulate or perhaps because you don't possess skills that are valuable enough.

People who are better at this are intimidating. They can often provide their kids with things others can't. This upsets people and it's hard to admire somebody who makes you feel inadequate.

This is the very reason why kids should be taught to be competitive in the class room. They'll be more able to stick up for themselves as adults and they'll be able to look after themselves and others.

We need strong people, not weak people and the strength needs to be developed at childhood.