Sunday, September 7, 2008

group poop


Middle schools are packed with group projects. Groups are everywhere. Whether you love groups or hate groups, you cannot go to school in this century and avoid group projects.
Good stuff about groups: working together, talking about stuff, sharing ideas, less work for you to do.
Poopy stuff about groups: working together, talking about stuff, sharing ideas, less work for you to do.
Did you get that? The same exact things that lots of kids really like about groups can also be the things kids hate about groups.
Working together: Some kids are shy and working together can be hard for them. We all know kids who are super bossy and think they should control everyone in the group. That's so annoying.
Talking about stuff: sometimes groups get off task and talk about embarrassing stuff or ask really personal questions or go on and on talking about football.
Sharing ideas: We have problems here with kids who only give ideas but refuse to listen to ideas and kids who don't want to give ideas in case someone says they're stupid. Sometimes there can be so many ideas that groups have trouble deciding on the best ones to use.
Less work to do: Are you wondering how anyone could think this is a poopy part of groups? Hey, not everyone likes to share their work. What if I want the details to be just right but you have sloppy handwriting? What if we decided to use purple paper but then you only had pink. Those are the kind of details that a group member might like to control.
getting along with group members isn't always easy. If your group is having arguments, try to think about the feelings of the other kids. Can you be the group member who understands that kids can be uncomfortable and feel weird in groups? Can you remind yourself to stay on task and avoid embarrassing topics? Can you remind everyone that doing your best is important for each person it the group? Oh, also, try to avoid running to the teacher in the first second of a problem. You're getting old enough to talk calmly with the group. Try to help the kids in your group to see that each person has different skills. That's something you learn from working in groups, which brings us to why middle schools are packed with group projects. Because we all need to learn to work together. Peacefully. Calmly. Kindly. Productively. Have a happy group!

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