Class Competition

After reading Sarah’s blog post “A Counter Example to the N-effect”, I began thinking about how school is really just another form of a game. Students compete with themselves, classmates, friends, siblings, and many other people to be able to get the best grades. The goal of getting good grades can be short or long term. Short term some goals may be to be on the honor role, to feel like your hard work paid off or to prove to someone else your intelligence. More long-term goals related to getting good grades include: getting into college, getting into graduate school or getting the job offer you want.

My competitive drive in school to receive good grades results from internal motivation to do the best I possibly can so that I have enabled myself to have the best possible opportunity to get the job I want out of graduate school. In terms of school work, I am hard on myself to reach my full potential, but I also feel competitive with other students when there are a limited number of top grades—such as when a class is graded on a curved scale. Particularly in big lectures, where I am not sure how a professor will grade a test, paper or other type of assignment, I feel the most competitive. I do not know the academic abilities of the hundreds of other students in that big class. However, in a smaller class or discussion I have a better idea of where I rank among the other students. Further, with a smaller class size, it is easier to build a relationship with the professor in the classroom situation. You are able to get a better sense of they will grade and the types of skills that are most important to them.

This idea about class size reminded me of a topic covered in my Psychology 250 (Developmental Psychology) class taught by Doctor Christopher Monk. In this class, we learned about a study on what makes a school effective. The results demonstrated that kids (from Kindergarten- 3^rd grade) in smaller class sizes had greater achievement in later grades, and were more likely to graduate. The reason behind this was determined to be that teachers of smaller classes spend the most amount of time giving individual attention to students, in turn providing the most effective teaching atmosphere for each student.

With this information, I came to the conclusion that the reason I felt the most competitive in larger classes was the information and way it is presented is less personally tailored to the ways in which I learn best. However, in a smaller class, whether or not the professor specifically tailors the information, it is easier to build a close-knit relationship with them and get the most out of learning. In a big lecture, the way a professor teaches may be more beneficial for other students than me, and so I feel more competitive to work harder to still receive the grade I want in the class.

However, Stephen Garcia’s idea of the N-effect claims that increasing the number of competitors decreases competition among competitors. In order to determine if other people also felt the opposite of the N-effect, I decided to conduct a survey that I posted to my Facebook and emailed to various college students. I found that I was indeed in the minority who felt this way about large classes.  The results were as follow:

The results paralleled Garcia’s findings with the N-effect. People felt most competitive with their friends—people who are very close in social-relation orientation—aside from feeling competitive to beat their personal best. They also felt most competitive in a small class, discussion or seminar. While these results were consisted with the N-effect, I hope to further explore why I feel so differently.

A Feeling Like No Other-flow

After talking about "flow" in class, I got to thinking. As an athlete in high school, I continuously pushed myself to a point where my mind would be completely clear. While many of my teammates played to clear their minds to think, I loved the feeling of pushing myself to where I was thinking about nothing. This got me thinking. If that's how I felt in high school, being an athlete for a major university must be amazing. On top of playing to an extremely high standard, you also have hundreds of fans, including fellow students, cheering you on. The competitive level is in a league of its own. You move from a high school level to college, while in college, you need to work harder then everyone else in order to gain a spot in the pros. After this class began, it got me thinking about an interview I did for one of my sport management classes this year. One of my good friends left Michigan after his sophomore year in order to pursue a dream in the NBA. During the fall semester, I interviewed former Michigan guard and Los Angeles Laker Darius Morris about his thoughts on playing basketball abroad, and what it means for players to travel to other countries to play.

1.     How do you feel about international players playing for the NBA?

I like it because it shows that anybody can play the game. It’s cool because it broadens basketball’s horizons so other people can get involved.

2.     Do you think the NBA should implement a language learning program or should players have to learn it on their own?

If a player comes over, they get a translator, for example, Yao Ming had a translator but eventually learned it on his own.

3.     What fears would you have if you went to play in Europe?

Being away from home and the new culture. Communication would also be really difficult and would be hard to adjust. The style of play is different but for me the struggles would be more off court.

4.     Have you had any interactions with international players? If yes, have you had trouble communicating with them?

Yes, however I keep it basic, I can’t use slang but they are usually able to understand a little bit.

5.     Would you want to learn foreign languages to communicate with potential international players?

I would try to make an effort to learn their language and lifestyle; it would be my responsibility. My brother played overseas and was able to pick up on stuff from his teammates that would help him understand, but he really just did it on his own.

6.     Do you think the media treats non-English speakers equally?

Yes to a certain extent. It really just depends on the players abilities, Yao Ming is an example, his skill translated into media attention. However if there is a non English speaking player and an English speaking player with equal talent, it might be better for a reporter to go to the English speaking player.

7.     In your opinion, what is the biggest difference between European programs and American programs?

The states have more resources that other countries don’t and it is also easier for us to go to college, there is an easier transition to the NBA compared to someone trying to come in and play from overseas. But it doesn't matter where you play, it is the feeling of just "being" while you play. As a former college athlete, I remember the feeling of feeling nothing. Every time I step on the court, I strive for that feeling because I know I am doing something right.

I realized he is talking about flow. That feeling of working so hard for something, being so good at it that it becomes a part of you and you have no thoughts or feelings while doing it. It is something that everyone should try and feel at least once and I am really looking forward to learning about other types of games during the rest of the semester. Go Blue!

"Runner's High"

This morning, as I slowed down my speed on the treadmill from running to a walking pace, I looked at the screen in front of me. One hour, eight minutes. For a moment, I thought to myself—what was I doing that whole time? 

Running, yes. Exhausted, no. Sweating, yes. Thinking, no. 

And then I realized what I was doing. I was in a state of flow. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is a state of awe and bliss, which results from a person being intensely involved in what they are doing. Csikszentmihalyi, in his video “On Flow”, describes a musician in the state of flow: ecstatic to a point where he felt as if he almost didn’t exist. He claims that flow comes from something that requires a high level of challenge but also a high level of skill.  Well, running is very challenging for me, but I also am a skilled runner. I’ve known I was a talented runner since I was in elementary school and won the 50 yard dash during Field Day (our school-wide “Olympic” competition), since I was a 6^th grader in middle school and the coach put me on the 8^th grade track team, since I was a member of my high school track team’s 4x200 relay team that set the school record.

My teammate and I in the 4x200 race
when we set the school record

I do have a lot of skill when it comes to sprinting, but running longer distances is much more of a challenge for me, especially after breaking my leg and foot within a year of each other. Putting these different ideas together, I determined that what I had always considered to be a “runner’s high” was really a state of flow. I was doing something that was challenging, but I was qualified to take on. During my run, I had lost track of time and had no idea what I was thinking about, characteristics of someone in a state of flow. All I knew was that when I began my run, in my head I was singing along to my music but by the end my head was no where—not paying attention to my music, not paying attention to how hot I was, and not paying attention to the time. Rather, I was fully absorbed in my run. I was so focused on my run that I did not even realize just how focused I was, but as I began to cool down, I realized this run was the perfect example of flow.

Disidentification

Last summer I volunteered at Beyond Sports Foundation as a mentor and tutor for athletically gifted, low-income high school athletes, from the inner city of Chicago.  The goal of the foundation is provide academic and social tutoring to these students, in order to obtain NCAA scholarships, their only avenue into college.

One of the BSF students and a tutor at the
Graduation Party for the Class of 2011 (in June)

I was home from school this past weekend, and while I was home I decided to go visit the students I had worked with. As I was talking to the boys, I asked them how school was, and I asked the seniors where they decided to go to college. One of the boys, who I spent a great deal of time working with this summer, told me he had not yet decided. At first I was very confused. The National Signing Date for a National Letter of Intent for football was February 1st, and most of the boys in the foundation had immediately committed. As we continued talking, he told me that he decided not to play football in college because the schools he was looking to sign with were not as good academically as schools he could get into based on his grades. 


Instantly, I thought about Claude Steele’s idea of “disidentification”, in the article Race and the Schooling of Black Americans.  I found it noteworthy that the one white student in the foundation was the one student in the foundation who still felt some connection to the academics of school. In the article, Steele talks about disidentification as the lack of a process in which Black students identify with school and academic achievements, resulting from the double vulnerability of Black students in school, where they risk confirming academic incompetence, thus the racial inferiority they are suspected of. As a result of this extreme pressure, at the first encounter with a modest academic setback, the Black students disidentify with academics and identify with something different to help boost their self-esteem (Steele, 1992). Steele claims the disidentification process only happens with black students, and this situation seemed to support his belief. 


While the 4 other seniors in the foundation, all Black, clung to their sports as the source of their identity and their path to college, this one White student believed academic success was more important than athletic success. The 4 other students used their athletic success as a way for them to succeed, but this one realized that doing well in school would get him farther in life. Academic success could help him get a career in which he could support himself and eventually a family, giving them the life he never had. He recognized his talent was above most other high school athletes, but not enough to go beyond college and provide economic security. He believed getting the best academic education possible would help him in the future, even if that meant giving up an NCAA athletic scholarship and finding other ways to pay for college. 

Some of the BSF students and tutors hard at work

This situation also reminded me of the “Star Power” game because in an attempt to get the best education, this one kid is trying to achieve something very difficult for someone in the lower class of our economically stratified country. He wants to reach a higher level of economic success than the one he was born into. However, the constraints that a low-income placed on his chance to go to college make it very hard to do so and easy to chose another path, such as athletics. 

Pistons vs. Heat Basketball Game

On January 25^th, Brooke and I attended the Detroit Pistons vs. Miami Heat basketball game. The score at the end of the first half was 56-50, Miami. However, in the third quarter, each team scored the same amount of points, making the score at the end of the third, 80-74. In the fourth quarter, the Pistons scored more than the Heat, yet not enough to bring home the win. The final score was 101-98, Miami. Within the length of the game, we witnessed the talent of some of the top players in the NBA, as well as the newest recruit for the Pistons, 20-year-old Brandon Knight. According to Huizinga in Homo Ludens, “Play begins, and then at a certain moment it is ‘over’” (9). In just four twelve-minute quarters, we witnessed countless plays, turnovers, rebounds, and even dunks. However, as the buzzer sounded at the end of the fourth quarter, the game ended as quickly as it started. Although people spent hours talking about the game before it began and after it was over, the actual play only occurred from the moment it started to the moment it ended. In addition to the fact that the game was set for a pre-determined time, the game was also in a distinct setting—The Palace of Auburn Hills. As we discussed in class, having a distinct setting is another feature of game play.

Going into the game, the Pistons had lost twelve of their last fourteen games. Despite this rough patch, they always had each other to depend on in order to maintain their positive attitude. Compared to the Heat, who made it to the championship in 2011 and are ranked first in the Southeast Conference, the Pistons are one of the weakest teams in the NBA. For this reason, the Pistons did not have much to lose if they did not win. Thus, when the game started, the competition level was very low. The Pistons would not be as upset losing to the Heat as they would be losing to a team such as the Cleveland Cavilers, who are only ranked one spot ahead of them in the Central Conference. According to the article, Ranks and Rivals: A Theory of Competition by Stephen Garcia, competition is at its greatest level when you compare two counterparts of similar capability. Since the two teams had such different rankings, there was not much competition when the game began. However, as the game went on, in the fourth quarter the score became very close. This generated more competition because the Piston’s chance of winning was now within reach. In the end, the Heat did win by three points. However, Garcia would assert that the Pistons would have accepted the loss much more easily if they had lost by a greater amount of points. This disappointment is a result of the Social Comparison Theory.

NBA Basketball is very competitive because it is both a popular form of entertainment for the public and also a form of income for the players. Huizinga states:

“Play is superfluous. The need for it is only urgent to the extent that the enjoyment of it makes it a need. Play can be deferred or suspended at any time… It is never a task. It is done at leisure, during ‘free time’” (13).

We do not believe that professional basketball meets these terms for what is considered to be play. A NBA game cannot be suspended at any time because the schedules have been set months in advance. Further, playing basketball for the NBA is a career for the players. This makes it a form of a task, rather than a recreational activity done during their “free time”. This is not to say that the players do not enjoy playing the sport, as most have dreamed of playing professional basketball since they were just toddlers. However, professional basketball includes more than just a recreational aspect, as it is also the way in which the players earn their salary. Thus, as an official career, the players must obey the rules of their contract. With this being said, the game of basketball is not completely leisure because there are certain regulations that both the players and coaches must follow. Basketball as a form of play goes beyond pure recreation. It is recreation for us as fans but not necessarily for the players, coaches and other team members. They are judged based upon their performance and must uphold a positive image.

Basketball is a team sport. Therefore, even after the buzzer sounds to officially terminate the game, the players must continue to work together. They are a team even after they leave the court. Although the game is over, their commitment to each other is not. Their relationships must carry on from one game to the next. Huizinga in Homo Ludens writes, "A play-community generally tends to become permanent even after the game is over" (12). Both the Pistons and Heat players remain “apart together”, a term coined by Huizinga. The players on each team are teammates for the entire season, both on and off the court. They are distinct from other teams and the rest of the world because they have a special membership in their team. In a way, they are like a family. Simply because of their mutual commitment to the team, they have an everlasting commitment to each other.

Works Cited

Garcia, Stephen M, Avishalom Tor, and Richard Gonzalez. Ranks and Rivals: A Theory of Competition. Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2006. Web. 3 Feb. 2012.

Huizinga, J. "Nature and Significance of Play." Introduction.Homo Ludens: Study of the Play: Element in Culture. By Huizinga. 1944. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955. 1-27. Print.

StarPower

The class on February 1st had us examine how we could change the game StarPower, a game with social tiers that idealizes the class differentiation in today's society. Although we didn't play it, we read descriptions of the game and what usually happens. With the squares being the highest tier and being able to the make the rules, they start to create rules that create a greater wealth disparity between them vs. the circles and triangles.

While I see this application in the real world since money and power are such a real-world thing and people are almost hypnotized by it, it's hard to see how in a class setting it would happen. The stakes are just so much lower that I don't see any incentive to put my other peers down. This is one of the issues I struggled with as I tried to put myself as a participant in the game. But it's hard to say since we actually didn't play the game. Furthermore, since the Occupy Wall Street movement, social inequality has been at the forefront of political and social discussions. If I were to play, I would feel sympathetic towards the lower tiers (if I was a square) and make it a point to not bully them around with rules and sanctions.

We were given the assignment of thinking about the flaws of StarPower and how our guild could go about fixing it. We thought a major flaw was that there had to be three tiers, and it becomes very difficult for people at lower tiers to move up. We came up with a few changes that could possibly be made to improve the game for the better.

1. Squares have to take at least one suggestion from the other groups

2. Opportunity to succeed should be reduced once you are at a higher level

3. People from bottom group randomly get upward mobility, not competing with within the groups

4. People from top offer up the ability to raise someone up, but it's randomly selected so there are no favorites

5. If squares refuse/are unable to raise person up, they are punished

6. If squares can raise enough people up, there is another level (diamond perhaps) where squares strive to be

I think about that 4th tier as the "Warren Buffett" tier. People would strive to help others out and be rewarded with a higher level. Obviously our rules aren't comprehensive and there would need to be more clarification. But that's what we came up with during our discussion. It would be very interesting to play StarPower with some of the suggestions others came up with.