She made straight As by the skin of her teeth, and no thanks to the slackers. She didn't learn anything about working in groups that she didn't already know. Somehow I don't think this "put them all together and let them sort it out" paradigm is that the business community had in mind. I want her to learn the subject material and be graded - FAIRLY - on whether or not she learnt it.
If I had wanted her to learn that life is unfair, I might simply have payed someone to break her legs. If I had wanted her to learn that people will steal her work from her, I could have emptied her room of all origami and other little things she's made for herself. If I had wanted her to learn that people will take credit for her work, I could have made some appropriate arrangement. What *IS* the lesson? And how does it relate to the subject being taught? As it turned out the cheerleader was eventually persuaded to do her work. Had that not transpired, my daughter would have been faced with a choice: do the work for her OR chance getting a lesser grade (giving her a B for the semester). She got lucky. Sure she stood up to the bullying - but it was pure luck that it worked out. It seems to me there are clear messages being sent here:
1) If you're smart, you'll learn your place as the workhorse of the group.
2) If you're lazy, you'll learn that you can coerce others to do your work (thereby guarranteeing yourself a place in the management track?)
I will say that the biology teacher has figured out a workable pardigm. They work in small groups during class, but everybody gets graded on their own work. This is a rare teacher among those who use the group paradigm who has figured this out.
But we have digressed from the issue of nerdliness. Sometimes this is might be used as a term of endearment, but usually it's intended to be a nasty comment. I'm reminded of that idiotic movie 'Revenge of the Nerds.' You see John Goodman and these others sneering the word 'nerd' or spitting it out and you think that it's an exaggeration of the current state of affairs. But it's not.
k
