November - Group work

Posted by Krystyna Hunt in

1 comments

This College relies a lot on group work. It's one way to process as many students as possible, and therefore collect more money, while dealing with the problem of how to teach them effectively. The College's theory is that if you make them do lessons and assignments in groups you only have to mark one assignment for every 4 people. The profs have left that fact slip out more than once.

As usual I was having a hard time in the most precise, least philosophical class: Design for Newsprint. And I once imagined being a layout artist. No way. Because I am late with an assignment I have not been able to finish in class, I am not paying attention when Prof Marshall tells the class to form groups of 4 for a major assignment leading to major marks. The groups form themselves and I am left with 2 other orphans. Not ones I would have chosen if I had first choice.

This is my group:

Ross is an enigma. He is 18 years old and says he has never read a newspaper before coming into this course. He wants to be a sports writer and he only reads stats. He doesn't even read other sports writers and obviously not, Mitch Albom. When I ask him what makes him want to write for newspapers, since he is revolted by the thought of reading them, he says, "I like sports."

Great. He likes sports but does not have what it takes to be an athlete, so what else can he do? Hey, he can be a sports writer. How else to get to see free games. He is one of the most passive, clued-out looking people in the class.

"Not the sharpest tool in the shed," Carol said about him once. Carol has dropped the graphics design classes in an effort to get control over her responsibilities, so I can't get into a group with her.

Ashley is also 18 years old. Sweet, angelic looking, wide-eyed waif. Our assignment is to put 4 pages of a newspaper together: the front page, a news page, and 2 other sections. We must write all the articles and take all the photos or create all art. It must have headlines, a targeted readership and be pleasing to read. It took me 2 hours to finish my unfinished assignment, time which Ross and Ashley had to confer about the subject matter of the newspaper. In that time they did not come up with one idea. I feel that familiar sense of panic again.

The assignment has to be in within 5 weeks (along with similar major assignments coming down, like a magazine and a media kit for both magazine and newspaper). In that time, Ashley is sick for 2 of the 5 weeks and does not return phone calls or emails.

Ross keeps saying, "yeah, yeah, I know" whenever I say we have to get started on this. He tells me Ashley doesn't like some of the classes and isn't coming to them anymore. I discover now is the time when students start dropping out, which is often displayed by just not showing up at class.

We did finally decide to do a newspaper on local music based around a local band who are friends of Ashley's, because neither of them had the slightest idea what I was talking about when I mentioned some of my interests, like the work of human rights' NGO's against the federal government's to cut off their necessary funding.

This band performs only at certain times. Our main article will be about their performance which only Ashley knows when will be happening. But she isn't communicating and not showing up for class way after she is not sick anymore, and Ross looks like a thought will come into his head only if he is connected to an electrical charge. I am in serious panic now because I cannot do this alone. I cannot do all the work and crack the whip over their heads too.

Ross tells me he has no idea when Ashley will come back to class or when she will talk to her band friends. Then he tells me he has been talking to her on the phone almost every evening. And he never thought to ask her these questions!!!

The teachers have told us that if someone in our group is not pulling their share of the load to let them know immediately. I ventilate my panic all over Prof Marshall and he tells me he will find me another group.

All the groups are full so I am placed in the a group of guys I mentioned before. The most guy group in the class. The ones who snark and whistle and snort and make paper airplanes through lectures. The ones interested only in zombies, gaming, hard metal and splatter films. I could deal with sticking only to these subjects. As a sociological writer basically, I can write about the sociology of anything. However, I discover that not only have they also not decided on a subject for the newspaper, they cannot decide.

They are too busy cracking jokes and outwitting each others ideas. They are too busy showing each other what smart guys they are to actually arrive at a final decision. They are too busy competing and showing off and not letting anyone else make a decision either - because every decision is an invitation to another competition and to another round of witty, put-down jokes.

The last thing these guys want is to have their grandma sitting in their tight little group. Two more hours of class are spent in having not one decision made, not even my arbitrary decisions allowed.

The next day, despondent, I pour my heart out to a friendly 25-year-old named Joanne. Luckily, she is my salvation.