Warm-up Speech Win-win Situation

Produced by the AEC Team

Charlie Musgrove

Donald Stabile

Maggie Zheng

Helen Zhao

Warm-up Speech

Turning a zero-sum game into a win-win situation

Real life is not a zero-sum game. Only the most cynicalpeople give credence to this mentality, but unfortunately, these cynics havetoo much influence in our society.

Zero-sum gaming is based on a fallacy, which goes likethis: Let's say you have a pie. The more pie that I eat, the less pie you haveto eat. Yes, that's true. But who the heck really needs to eat the whole pie?No one. There is plenty of pie for both of us. And anyone who turns pie-eatinginto a zero-sum game is ridiculous. My experience shows that it is not thatdifficult to turn a win-lose game into a win-win situation if you have wisefriends.

Like many other teachers, I used to prefer asuccess-oriented teaching model. Therefore, I mainly focused on competition anda few so-called MVPs in class. But my friends have just convinced me that agrowth-oriented model would do more help than harm. Their inspiring words arestill echoing in my mind: “Thegrowth-oriented model benefits not just the struggling students but also thestudents who are already considered successful. In economic terms, agrowth-orientation improves the productivity ofeveryone on theteam or in society, which means that every individual benefits from theimprovements made for the whole team.” 

My friends also gave me an example. “It is inevitable that some team members earn a higherGPA than others. Here comes the key difference between growth-oriented studentsand success-oriented students. As for the former, they focus on how to benefitfrom cooperating with their teammates to solve problems. They make the best useof their strengths to complement their teammates’ weaknesses. Little by little, they make more progress and earn a better GPAbecause they make an increasing contribution to the team in different ways. Asa result, they feel rewarded and are ready to embrace friendship. By contrast,as for the latter, they focus on their weaknesses and try to catch up withothers. Whenever there is a problem, they are quick to blame others rather thanfind solutions or make improvements. It results in frustration and consumes alot of energy, which gets in the way of making progress and friends.”

That was an Ah-ha moment for me. I’m thankful for my friends’ insights. They have helped conventionalteachers like me shift focus from a zero-sum success of the minority to awin-win scenario of the majority.