<p>Historymom - I love you! Hate, hate, hate group projects.</p>
<p>Hunt, yes this is a private school, and I will go further up if needed. Why should my student have to spend the entire semester trying to get another student to do his homework? Isn’t that the teacher’s job? It doesn’t do the slacker students any good for my student to do their homework for them. What will they learn from that? I’m sure the administration would agree that this is not in any way a good idea nor a sound teaching philosophy. It is important that they are aware of this, if in fact this is what the teacher is expecting.</p>
<p>I agree with Hurt. I too hate the group projects but what they try to do is make them a good team player but school is not the good place to judge as the whole college admissions are very competitive. sorry about your situation.</p>
<p>This is a very similar senario to the one that my son experienced in middle school. This is when I got the lecture about thinking of the group as being a part of a basketball team. If one member of the team messes up, the entire team suffers. BTW, if one went up the chain of command as historymom suggests, there would be a united front on the matter with full teacher support in front of any parent.</p>
<p>And the team member who messed up is benched for the next few games, and his/her contract isn’t renewed for the following year. Plus, the coach is generally fired for having a lousy season. </p>
<p>If the teacher is so hot on this analogy, I’m sure he or she won’t mind us taking it to its logical conclusion. :)</p>
<p>SlitheyTove, exactly. The problem is that the teacher did not want to listen to a parent. I was talking to a brick wall. The decision was the decision. I was so happy that this teacher is no longer teaching in our district. Perhaps he moved on to some school administrative position that pays more money! :eek:</p>
<p>Our experience with complaining to or about a teacher never helped. In fact, it was worse in private school than in public school. D had fractured her thumb in field hockey and wasn’t supposed to do handwriting for 3 days; teacher told her to suck it up and do the written assignment anyway. Teacher sent home worksheets from a very old mimeograph machine that were unreadable; everyone got F’s anyway. Teacher told the class that whoever could aim from the back row and hit her (the teacher) with this fake rock she kept on her desk would get an A on that day’s quiz; so some kid randomly gets an A. We started off nice, but escalated it as it was apparent the teacher was incompetent. At the end the teacher was mad and took it out on a few of the kids (including my D) whose parents had complained. Repeatedly. We actually considered pulling D out for the last month of school (this was middle school and we weren’t as concerned with GPA). </p>
<p>Amazingly, that teacher is still at that particular private school, but my point is that we are very careful about complaining in high school. Teachers talk to other teachers, and in the OP’s particular situation I would question whether complaining about this is worth it in the long haul.</p>
<p>Givings I completely agree, and I have seen much of what you describe with my kids, and with friend’s children. My friend’s child was quite upset when kids could bring in donuts on Fridays and it would add 5 points to a test if they made this purchase. My kids have also had the opportunity, here and there, to “donate” items in exchange for bonus points! What a joke. If I spend $10, then my kid goes up half a letter grade on a test?!?! Are you kidding me?</p>
<p>Boy, that “real world” excuse for unfair policies/assignments makes steam come out of my ears. It’s fundamentally stupid and intellectually lazy. </p>
<p>After all, in the real world, students will be lied to, defrauded, abandoned by loved ones, maybe assaulted or even murdered. Does that mean that schools have an obligation to do all these awful things to their students by way of preparation for the harsh reality that awaits them?</p>
<p>Extreme examples, yes, but the point is that it’s never a valid justification of an unjust or unreasonable policy to point out that students will face similar injustices or irrationalities later in life. Either the policy makes sense on the merits, or it should be abandoned.</p>
<p>How about this way of putting it: “We understand that you want to teach the children about the problems they will face in the real world, but we think that it would be better for you to concentrate on teaching them positive values, such as fairness and personal responsibility. While these can be in short supply in the real world, we want our children to rise above the level of the real world, not sink to meet it.”</p>
<p>Tons of excellent comments. Add me to the group project haters. One I haven’t seen yet- be thankful this is your son’s final semester. Do your best with the conference/principal… Vote with your pocketbook when they ask for future donations. One potential bad grade shouldn’t affect his college plans at this stage in the game, and if there are questions from the college he plans to attend you can address the details with it later. You and he will survive this and it will be ancient history in a few short months. Do not let this ruin his final months of HS (I’m sure you aren’t).</p>
<p>Maybe it is just me, but I didn’t loath all group projects in high school. When I could pick my group it all went just fine. Even when I had my group assigned things weren’t that bad. Yes, I am the typical cc overachiever who ended up doing a lot of the work on the project (sometimes all of the work). I came up with a pretty good system though for doing group projects. First, whenever I was assigned to a group, I would always offer to be the one who puts all of the parts of the project together. In addition, I would offer to do an equal share of the initial work so that no one argues over the assembling job. This way I knew what is and what is not done on the project.</p>
<p>Most group projects are due a week or two after they are assigned. So what you do is ask that everyone sends you their part three days before the due date. If some one does not send you something, bug them for a day (the more you do this, the better you get a guilting people into doing things for you). If they have not sent it to you by that point you have two days to make up whatever slack is necessary, more than enough time to finish just about any sort of HS project. Yes, it might not be fun but it is defiantly doable.</p>
<p>But I understand this does not work in the OP’s situation, you S situation is really unfortunate.</p>
<p>Now on the topic of groups, there is something I despised in HS that is far more than the group project, the group test. I had a math teacher who would give group tests that had to be split amongst group members in order to finish on time, and our groups were assigned. The result was that I got a everything right on my part and so did another person, but the other two people in the group screwed up their parts and the group got a 75 (me and the other person who did well both had harder parts as well). There was not enough time to check the work of the other people unfortunately. Literally every group did bad on this test since she assigned the groups by going though here grade book with people arranged from highest grade to lowest grade and counted off. Seems really fair doesn’t it? Thankfully I was able to come back from that, but it was a pain in the butt to deal with.</p>
<p>Thanks wis75! Yes, it’s pretty small in the scheme of things and it’s a good reminder not to let it ruin his last semester. This son works very hard for everything and I’m so proud of how he’s grown during high school. He’s a cool kid. He can always see the best in every teacher, even those that no one else likes, and I won’t make this into a bigger deal than it is. I save most of my angst for CC :D</p>
<p>Firehose, a group test? I have never heard of such a thing. That is ridiculous! </p>
<p>My shy, quiet 9th grade daughter had her first high school group project this fall, and I warned her ahead of time about being in control of the project. She ended up virtually completing the project on her own with only a little help from one boy. I was amazed when I saw my quiet daughter standing up (in a nice way, but still, firmly) to a couple of the group members in order to get this done on time. I had never seen that side of her, but she wanted to do well and she drew from inside of herself to be strong and insistent. YOU GO GIRL was all I kept thinking inside!</p>
<p>As a typical CC overachiever, I LOATHE group projects…Normally I’ll do all the work or myself and one other person will do EVERYTHING…When you are in a group of 3 or 4, it isn’t too terrible…but in 6 or 7 it gets rough. </p>
<p>I was finally fed up with group projects this year in english and told my teacher I would be doing my project myself(it was a 6 person group project). When he asked why, I said because I do all the work anyways, I want ONLY my name on the project.</p>
<p>He was miffed and was like “you have to learn to work with others” How is this working with others if they don’t do anything…? Needless to say I turned in the project solo and was happy to get all the credit</p>
<p>^r6l, it sounds like it was the rest of the group, not you, who needed to be given that lecture. Actually, for them he could have left off the last two words. :)</p>
Actually, for them he could have left off the last two words. :)</p>