I was more of a loner back in high school. I didn’t like group projects because I thought I could do it better by myself. There was one particular project that sticks out.
At my high school, freshmen got a choice of which PE class to take. It was either Gym or Aquatics. I chose Aquatics because I:
- Like Water
- Was Scared of Gym Kids
Usually, we would swim all hour, learning new strokes, diving, and playing water games. Sometimes, our teacher wouldn’t be there or there’d be a half day. When that happened, we would sit in the hallway and work on a special project: Our safety presentation.
We were split up into lane lines, and each lane was a group that was working on a slideshow. My group got Beach Safety. I was absent when they got started on the slideshow, but luckily I was able to work on it the next time. All they had done was make an awful title slide. So, I got to work. Before I knew it, I’d made 6 slides. Nobody else had done more than add an image. The next time, I finished the whole slideshow and even had an extra Thank You slide.
This may seem like a bad and stressful approach, but it has its benefits.
- You can blame everyone else for slacking if the slideshow is bad
- You can make sure its not a bad slideshow
- You get very popular with your group for doing all the work
- You can ask for favors later
This also prevents the other parties from learning the subject, which hurt me a bit inside, but it’s Aquatics. Everyone knows not to stare at the sun on the beach.
For Spanish, I don’t take the same approach. I make them work. The teacher forced me and some other students that had poor grades to work together because she thought I was a “good influence.”
No good grade goes unpunished.
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