Why Kids Care More About Achievement Than Helping Others

If you read the law for Danish public school system ("Folkeskole"; http://www.uvm.dk/Service/Publikationer/Publikationer/Folkes...), you find that one of the goals is to "contribute to the understanding of the interactions between people", and intellectual freedom and democracy are important concepts.

Reality might be different from the law, of course. Listening to my children (10 and 13 years old) and their friends, I find that they in general try hard to understand other children and wish to play/work as a group.