Working together is on my mind lately, beginning with a group activity in my online History of Math class. Neither history nor math ever rang my bell in school before, but going back to college in my fifties has taught me I’m not who I thought I was, and things that previously held no interest are suddenly engrossing. Learning about which ancient culture invented the zero or discovered algebra and geometric relationships is truly absorbing. Go figure. It’s my first online course and my classmates and instructor are spread across time zones, age range, and learning experience. When a group project was posted with permission required to work individually, I opted to rely on my own efforts and bow out of the team spirit.
Now that it’s over and handed in, I’m happy that I had a report to hand in. A couple of the teams couldn’t get it together enough to hand ANYTHING in and the ones that did struggled mightily. All team interaction had to take place on a class message board so the instructor could ascertain the contribution level of each participant. There was initially a lot of What do you want to do? I dunno, what do YOU want to do? and then the cop-outs began, like I’ll be out of town the day it’s due so whatever the team decides is okay with me, and I’m an economics major so I’ll let the English majors do the actual writing, and finally, this frantic plea from one of the default team leaders HAS ANYONE ON THIS TEAM EVER WRITTEN A PAPER BEFORE??!
Two of the teams completely fell apart with the members having to turn in individual papers late, and one team effort was posted on time with the disclaimer of the aforementioned leader “Here it is and I’m ashamed to have my name on it. I’ll never do anything like this again.” Not quite the all-for-one project the instructor had envisioned, I’m sure, but the whole thing smelled off to me from the start. If adults haven’t learned what they should about group ethics by the time they’re adults, it won’t come just because others are depending on them.
We here in New York can look to our state government for proof of that. First we lost our governor, Eliot Spitzer, due to his penchant for pay-to-play team activities, otherwise known as prostitution. What we got for our trouble was Governor David Paterson, who guided the state into creative ruin while denouncing the frat boy antics of our overpaid senate. With Paterson admitting up front that he and his wife had both strayed outside their marriage, at least we knew what we were getting. But now he has been forced to bow out of the upcoming election and may even be removed from office before his current term expires.
Seems one of his aides beat up his girlfriend, and our governor told two state employees to try and coerce the woman into dropping the charges. As of today, the State Police superintendent and Paterson’s top law enforcement adviser have both resigned. If the governor resorts to claiming he acted out of regard for his administration’s continued ability to govern, he’ll have to deal with our outcry DOES ANYONE ON THIS TEAM REMEMBER WHO THEY’RE SERVING?
Daughter’s Featured Fotos offer Parting Shots of Winter, we hope
snow trails
stacked
views
cozy cafe