It is unfortunate that faculty members often deliberately avoid creating competition in their courses out of fear of damaging student self-esteem or privacy considerations. Competition is one of the best ways to achieve growth. We invariably perform better when we are striving to achieve in a competition. I once performed a maximum heart rate test on a stationary bike, and afterward, the tester added 10 beats per minute to the results to obtain my true maximum, on the grounds that people always achieve a higher heart rate during competition than they are capable of achieving on their own.
