Competition and collaboration are two inevitable factors of today’s life, which are also present in the lives of children. The modern society is often competitively oriented, which calls for some adjustments. Collaboration is seen as positive behavior that requires a systematical encouragement of children already in the preschool period. The beliefs and arguments concerning competition, which needs to be appropriately guided and adjusted to the individuals and the groups’ peculiarities in kindergarten, are less unified. Due to the important influence that competition and collaboration have on the child, it is worth pointing out the role of expert associates in kindergartens, who familiarize children with competition and collaboration and act as their role models.
In my Bachelor’s thesis I investigated the kindergarten teachers’ and their assistants’ views on the presence of competition and collaboration of children in kindergartens, the frequency of incorporating these types of tasks in their pedagogical work and in what way they encourage them. I was interested in who the children collaborate with and against whom they compete. I also researched in which situations the kindergarten teachers most commonly include competition and collaboration. When collecting the data, I combined surveying of expert associates and observation of five different groups in the kindergarten. I compared the results obtained through the survey according to the work position of the interviewees. I came to the conclusion that the expert associates agree with the fact that collaboration between children is imperative, but also highlight the importance of including competition in the preschool period. Among kindergarten teachers and their assistants I could not find any statistically relevant differences. It is essential that expert associates include competition and collaboration in their pedagogical work, given that in this way they will prepare children for the life in the modern world, which requires us to develop competition skills as well as collaboration skills.
|