I begin writing this entry after having to brave the cold weather and go to the Media Comm building to wait over a half an hour for a project partner who never showed up. Again. This is the second incident with this partner, and the time we have available to work on our editing project is quickly dwindling. We haven’t even started editing the movie, let along map out a basic storyboard and get an idea of where we’re going with it. The only time we’ve watched the “rushes” or “rough shots” was during class. This project is supposed to take approximately seven hours to complete, and this is the second week when we’ve done nothing.
You can obviously understand my annoyance with my project partner, because the deadline will soon be approaching and I’ve got other classes to do projects (with partners, once again) that I need to devote time to as well.
This is not really an unusual occurrence, though I expected better for college students. In high school, I always wanted to work alone because I got more done that way. When forced into groups, there’s often one or more people who contribute nothing and bring everyone else down.
Why have we gotten so lazy? How come humans, such gregarious creatures, have the common traits of laziness and procrastination in group projects? Perhaps I’m just a little ticked and ranting away about something stupid because my project partner stood me up again. Afterall, I could be blowing this out of proportion. Last week when he didn’t show up, he sent an email saying he hit a deer. That’s something he could not control, and therefore wasn’t his fault.
Maybe it is simply the way we’ve been brought up by our parents. It seems that each new generation of children is lazier than the last, an effect that may have come about through a combination of new time-saving technologies and lax parenting.
Any other theories?
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I hate that. I'm usually the one who gets saddled with the extra weight (because I'm smart enough to know how to use the internet to get the info that I need), so I try to work alone, because I get so sick of the lack of participation.
Sadly, my teachers get mad at that and have called my parents to ask them if I've been diagnosed as antisocial by any doctor. Yeah, that was an awkward phone call/night. My mom ended up not being happy with the teacher calling.
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http://progressiveu.org/163906-i-m-really-scared-those-babies-really-rea...
(Latest blog. )
I know the school year is over, but I want to put this out there for posterity, in case any teachers read this post someday...
In group projects, it is so important that the students have the opportunity to confidentially reflect upon their performance in the group and on the performance of their group members. If Bridge's partner did none of the work, Bridge needs to be able to tell the teacher this in a way that is not tattling. If kids know there will be this measure of accountability, they may take more ownership for their part of the work. Those who don't care about grades won't, but there's not much that can be done in that case.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman