Group Work at School

          Sigh, group work at school...
So, I'm getting this feeling that I've been writing a lot about a somewhat interesting event that happened to me during the week. It's like I'm writing in a journal!.. (without all of the "personal" and "emotional" stuff...). Though I am getting to like writing these kinds of posts. I can reflect on them and I can relive the experience by just reading what I wrote (exactly like a journal would do!). Plus, I can share with you what happened to me during the week, and the lessons I learned from it. I don't want to bore you with these stories if you don't like them. I try to make my stories as exciting as possible. But if you prefer that I write these posts less often, feel free to tell me! With this out, here is my experience on working with some of my new classmates! Have a good read!

My Humanities teacher (Social Studies and ELA combined) wanted us to do a poster about one of the elements of worldview. You might not understand what I mean, but basically we were supposed to create a poster about one of the seven; value, belief, economy, knowledge, geography, time or society. My Humanities teacher numbered us into seven groups based on the class list. In my group, we were five. Most of the groups had five people in them, because we are more than thirty students. And we had to create a poster about value.

Let's call my groupmates with nicknames. So there was Caillou, Minion Rush, Chatty Kathy and Slow Snail. Interesting choice of nicknames, huh? You'll see why...

I had worked with Slow Snail before because she was in my class last year too. In fact, she is one of my closest friends. Heheh, hopefully she won't be offended with the nickname I give her... But I had never worked with Caillou, Minion Rush or Chatty Kathy before. But with the behaviour they had during class time, I was kind of stressed about our assignment.

I was literally the only one writing down what we needed to do and basically, I felt like a boss because I had to tell them to work and do their job. We did get some work done on Day 1, but we still needed a lot of time to complete our poster... Although I did enjoy working with them. They were funny, a bit charismatic and friendly people.

On Day 2, we were prepared with our poster, our pencil crayons, rulers, everything. We asked our teacher to take one of the private rooms in our library to get more privacy. And essentially here is what happened:
                    - Caillou was playing the theme song in Caillou on repeat while doing part of his work
                    - Minion Rush was playing Minion Rush on Slow Snail's phone
                    - Slow Snail was taking her leisurely time with her part of the work
                    - Chatty Kathy was well, talking. And colouring because she is the artist of our group

As for me, I reminded them to do their work and also did my part of the work. And I started singing along with Caillou... And I also talked... a lot... It was fun! But we were finally done!.. or so we thought.

On Day 3, our teacher told us to start over because our work was too plain and the writing was too small. Oh yeah, did I mention that our humanities teacher is also the art teacher for the school? Yeah... So we had to START OVER. Hooray, right? And it was also a half day (we were only at school for half of the day) so the classes were shortened!

But thankfully Chatty Kathy offered to finish the rest of the work we started during the weekend because she wouldn't have anything to do! We wrote everything we needed, all she needed to do was glue them on the poster! So whoof, we were saved!


Honestly, it was such a rush being with this group of people. There were ups and downs. It was like a roller coaster ride. I do regret being stern with them, because once I was more "loose" and being able to have fun with them, it was already time to finish our assignment. Each group has diverse people in them. So your experience with every one of your groups will never be the same. Try to enjoy and cherish every moment while it lasts.

And that is my experience on group work with my new classmates, everybody! Could you relate somehow?

Keep Smiling,
M-L