"When we set children against one another in contests from spelling bees to awards assemblies to science fairs, that are really contests, from dodgeball to honor rolls to prizes for the best painting or the most books read - we teach them to confuse excellence with winning, as if the only way to do something well is to outdo others. We encourage them to measure their own value in terms of how many people they've been which is not exactly a path to mental health. We invite them to see their peers not as potential friends or collaborators but as obstacles to their own success. Finally we leave children to regard whatever they are doing as a means to an end: the point isn't to paint or read or design a science experiment, but win. The act of painting reading or designing is there by devalued in the child’s mind." Alfie Kohn, The Myth of the Spoiled Child