No tension for learning, please

Competition

Holding the green bendable ruler
And standing up in front of the board
Like my opponent classmate
I read the question,
But the words were just words to me.
My ability to decode them halted.
I slapped back and forth on
the answers “yes” and “no”
Without knowing what to choose.

I heard the classmates at the back shouting “yes.”
I ran through the words again
But a simple logic question made
No sense to me.
Feeling rooted and gazing at the question
I wished for vanishing.

The opponent slapped on “yes”
When her team member continuously shouted for it.
She got one more point.
I lingered back to my seat
With my head down.

Leaving the classroom,
I slumped myself in a chair
And read a children’s book
To keep my frenetic thoughts
Slowly at bay again.

I wrote this poem based on my experience at a group teaching in the class. I feel the tense feeling during competition not only in me but also in several other students. I know that the purpose of this activity is to assess or revise what the group leacture on Piaget's Concrete Operational or Formal Operational thoughts. I remember, as a first student from my team coming out in front of the board to answer, after reading the question I know what it meant, but under the pressure to slap the answer more quickly than my opponent, I slapped on the wrong one. Again, to answer the logic question in which event the above poem mainly focus on, Valerie's fast reading aloud the question sentence to us "enhanced" my tension to slap the answer as quickly as possible, so I felt this tension shutting down all of my cognitive doors. Like I described in the poem, my oponent was also just slapping the answer without thinking much or even understanding the question. This experience deeply have me think of how the this or that question type does not help us learn anything about the concepts that teachers want to get across. Although I still don't want to say that any competition is no good for learning, I truly tell myself to be more considerate whenever I exploit "competition" for their learning. I put this entry under authentic learning because the activity which put the learners under the speed pressure, so bring so much tension to their cognitive process really call my attention on what learning means to my kids.