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School Projects |
When
setting up a group project, a good idea is to start with a plan.
You can outline your ideas, goals, and strategies.
Of course, you'll probably end up discarding this plan at 1:00 in
the morning, but plans do give a sense of reassurance and security. They make you feel as if you know what you are doing.
I've
heard teachers mention that often the students are harder on their peers
than the teachers are. This
is true. Makeshift kangaroo
courts are often held, and capital punishment is legal and highly
recommended when promises are not kept and people don't show up to
meetings. Repeat offenders can have their houses bugged and phones tapped
a la 1984.
Teachers
don't seem to like sexual innuendo very much, and excessive violence to
the point of personal injury is usually out of the question.
This means that the hero of the story can stab the bad guys (or the
good guys, for that matter) but he can't set himself on fire, give the
heroine a heroic kiss and ride off heroically into the sunset on the back
of the flaming stallion.
Projects
are the ideal way to fulfill all the Western Association of Schools and
Colleges (WASC) accreditation objectives: learning the basic concepts,
critical thinking, effective communication, and personal and social
development.
Concept
learning - More important is to make sure that you're doing a project on
the right subject, and then work from there.
This is called working "step by step". A basic concept
that may be familiar to you is the assignation of people to "victuals
procurement" (snack and food people), "equipment
stockpiling" (posterboard buyer) and "data processing" (the
poor, overworked geek who does all the research) and "morale
booster" (the good-for-nothing lackey who serves as a sufficient
scapegoat).
Critical
Thinking - It's amazing how clearly you're able to think when forced to
write a whole lot of information in a very short time.
When it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you're trying to write a
6-page paper (which comprises a third of your grade) about the effect of
Galapagos finches on the economy of Kyoto, this is called critical
thinking. Critical
thinking makes up most of the work that you do when you do a project at
the last minute.
Effective
Communication - Projects are very important because you learn how to
communicate well and clearly with other people.
"Damn, boy, if you don't get that work done and in my inbox by
7:00, I'll have you hung upside down on the flagpole by your
underwear." This, combined with agitated hand motions and eye
flashing does wonders for accelerating your team project.
Personal and Social Development - As you are thrown unwillingly into a pit with your fellow classmates, you develop good social skills and are forced to reevaluate your place in society among your peers. I think that after 2-3 more years of school projects, most people will have the social skills for becoming diplomats, gracious hosts and hostesses, and confident leaders of society. The rest of us will be so disgusted with society that we will go off and live in the forest as grouchy hermits.
Parallel processing is a very good strategy. However, contrary to popular belief, it does not mean that one person does the whole project while another person surfs the 'net, while others play video games and still others snore away on the bed. You may try to develop this tactic with your group.
After
working for a long time, the end product is something you can be proud of.
All the research you did, the connections between concepts you
outlined, they all came together on this project.
Heck, it might look like a piece of trash, but it's your piece of
trash, the piece of crap you slaved over painstakingly.
If
you get stuck with a group of slackers and flakes as is often the case in
arranged group projects, do not despair.
When self-evaluations and team reports are turned in, everyone will
get their just deserts. This means you can laugh evilly and draw stick figures of
people with "Freeloading Scum: Watch for Falling Flakes" stamped
on their foreheads and wave goodbye to the people.
"Hasta la pasta"...until the next project.
Jokes and cynicism aside, I think projects help us prepare for real life on many levels. They allow us to express otherwise-unconnected concepts in creative media like posters, illustrations, diagrams, papers, multimedia presentations and video. Because they're so complex, we're forced to learn how to work interdependently with other people and appreciate their varying skills (although they might be grouchy hermits in training). They can be entertaining ways to connect disciplines into something that, when done well, is something that we can take pride in.