Group Projectiles

There is a phrase that strikes dismay and resentment into the heart of every good student: Group Project. Perhaps you are the only one who cares about doing well, or the only one who understands the material well enough to make a meaningful contribution, or the only one willing to put the shoulder to the wheel. Generally, there are two responses for the isolated, intelligent student in this situation, neither of them good: the first is to curse the numbskull of a teacher who first came up with group projects. This is individualism, and I will address it later. The second response is to dream of a group that would divide the work reasonably and fairly—that would be more of a team than a group—that would do work worthy of A’s—the chimerical A-Team. A few stellar people with diversity of talents, none of them stepping on the others’ toes or nerves, eminently competent people! That’s what it would take to make a group project worthwhile!

Let’s say you find just such a group. Continue reading