Some people believe that schools should primarily teach students how to best compete with others. Other people believe that schools should primarily teach students how to cooperate with others. Which of these two approaches do you favor? Use specific reas

In my opinion it is more important that the students learn how to work in groups than how to compete with the others to be the best.

The main reason why I think this way is that in most of the jobs teamwork is essential and usually people it is not enough qualified to do that because at school and college they have been competing all the time, for example, the students are tested individually and if they want to get a scholarships, they ought to demonstrate that they are better than their mates. If at school, the tests were make in groups, probably, the students would learn how to cooperate and take advantage of the skills of each member of the team. However, at schools were students are used to work individually, when they are asked to work in groups it is not strange that a few students do all the work while the others do not help at all, this happens because they don’t know how they can participate, because the mechanisms of team working are totally different of the ones we are used to.

In my opinion to be competitive is also an important skill to become what you really want to be, for example, if you want a job, you will need to be one of the best candidates for it and it requires to be better than the others. However, frequently, at job interviews, the employers pay more attention to the capacity to work with partners, because the work of two people in a team is better and richer than the work of two persons doing it separately.

In conclusion, it is important to be good at what you do, but it is also important to have the capacity of work in a team, and in my opinion, this skill is underestimated these days.