Hit it with a sledge hammer, the group story

While waiting for a flight, a mid-level bureaucrat read a pamphlet about how kids should work together in groups and now it has become all the rage - as in, it is inducing rage within the district's teachers.

Teachers are required to have group justifications at the ready, and there is even a part of the two-page lesson plan form dedicated to it. Most classrooms are no longer set up in the traditional row format that was good enough for you and me and the generations and generations of students that preceded us; now they prefer a new 'pod' configuration.

Don’t get me wrong - I see some good with students working in groups; some kids can learn from other kids and some kids can teach other kids. The group should definitely be in a teacher’s bag of tricks. Though, (like most changes that the state forces down the throat of education without a care as to what is best for teachers and students preferring to go with the fad of the moment) the application quickly goes off the rails.

I find that in most groups there is usually one kid who takes the lead, and not always by choice. Then, there is usually at least one (though often more students) who ride the leader's coat-tails to success. You can see them not contributing, just copying. And if all they are doing is copying, you know very little learning is going on. Furthermore, I know kids who don’t like to be in groups, preferring, instead, to work alone - and they are not uni-bombers in the making it, that’s just who they are. I hated grouping up when I was in school, yet daily I find myself saying "now, work on this in your group".

I am not against classroom groups, and, in fact, am a big believer of grouping children by ability. I am just against the state's heavy-handed 'hit it with a sledgehammer' approach. Teachers have always paired up high-achieving and low-achieving students, and teachers have always had group assignments for special projects. Instead of saying this is a cure-all that will save education, (especially when those in the actual classrooms know it’s not), why don’t they send teachers the data (if it exists) and encourage it. Forcing classes to group up even for the most trivial assignments flies in the face of what has worked in education since Plato rounded up some kids to talk about some folks trapped in a cave. Once again, it’s bureaucrats versus teachers and the bureaucrats are winning and education is losing.

The state knows one speed and that’s 'hit it with a sledgehammer' and ram it down the throats of teachers and students alike.