Excerpt

All students should benefit from Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) competitive activities. The extra training related to their curriculum, the exposure to the lofty ideals of these organizations, and the opportunity to compete should have a positive impact on every student that participates.

Many of the organizations’ activities involve contests. If only the students who win medals at the national level benefit from these activities, then activity efforts were wasted on the other students. If school administrators judge the quality of their career and technical programs on how many state medals the program generates, then the teacher and the program may have been inappropriately judged.

The most vital element of judging is how the students judge themselves. Students need to learn that the joy of achievement does not necessarily mean winning a medal. Learning, growing, and attempting personal best efforts may be the most significant element of competition that the teacher-advisor will see from a group of students. It is the teacher’s job to enable the students to understand the essential aspects of competing so that they will not be disappointed by their creative efforts. This is a tough job that requires a huge proactive effort with constant reinforcement before and after the competition.

Although no teacher-advisor can fully manipulate how the students will feel if they don’t win a medal, good teachers can coach their students to help them put any disappointment in the proper perspective and minimize or even eliminate its potentially negative impact. Teacher-advisors must be ready to proactively deal with this aspect of competition before signing up any students. Teachers who are not ready to proactively deal with this side of competition may do their students more harm that good by signing them up.

There are many levels that can lead up to a national contest. These vary according to program, school, and state. All programs should have local contests before sending students to the next level contest. Some schools have schoolwide contests, before sending students to regional or state contests. School districts may even have district wide contests. Some states have regional contests that send winning students to their state contests. All states have state level contests before sending students to national contests. If more contests are available, more students get to participate. If more contests are available, participating students become better prepared. More contests also mean more opportunities for students to win medals.

All students can’t win medals at all levels, but well-prepared students are more comfortable during the contest. They also feel better about their performance if they are ready to do their best. Well-prepared students usually impress the judges. Judges from the business community usually value all of the students who do a good job in the contest; this can happen during the contest as well as when students mention participating in their career and technical student organization during a job interview. If judges see the whole group of students performing well, they are impressed with the career and technical education programs that provided competitors. It is not unusual for judges to be so impressed with the whole group of students that they score the competitors very closely.

What can teachers do to help make the contest situation a win-win situation for themselves and the students? There are a few issues that they will need to address:

1. Prepare the students’ awareness of the true significance of participating in the competition well before the contest.
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3. Teach the necessary skills before the contest.
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5. Teach the students to understand how to be a personal winner.
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7. Assist the students in practicing their skills before the contest.
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9. Learn as much as possible about the process of operating the competition.
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11. Review contest rules with the students.
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13. Assist in maintaining a realistic level of contest quality.
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15. Recognize the students for participation and effort, regardless of outcomes.
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17. Understand the process of operating a competition, and thereby gain perspective on a realistic expectation of contest quality.
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19. Assist contest officials (if needed) in maintaining a realistic level of contest quality for upcoming contests.