Collaborativeness

I was talking to my Uncle Tony yesterday (no he is not an Italian mobster) about the differences he sees in my generation and he felt the most prominent difference is our level of independence. When I asked what he meant, he explained that my generation is one of the most solitary and independent he has ever seen. With our ipods, laptops, gaming systems and blackberries, we rarely feel the need for face to face interactions. We stay out later, we get jobs younger, we go away from home sooner and stay away longer... It soon became clear that when Uncle Tony used the word "independent" he did not mean it as a compliment. He was not saying that we have become more self-reliant, but that we have become more self-serving. The sentiments are echoed every time that Jim Langholz says that we are the generation of instant gratification. Both men are saying that we do not know how to wait for things, even if they are more than worth the wait. We are constantly thinking about ourselves. It is ME! ME! ME! all the time.

Collaboration and cooperation sometimes feel like dying arts. In school, while cooperation is touted as being one of the building blocks to success, all of our group projects were designed with pairs of poorly matched students. The highly effective students were paired with struggling students which more often than not hurt both students perceptions of healthy collaboration. The effective student will quickly grow frustrated and end up doing the majority of the work themselves and the struggling student, who may not be able to keep up, gets frustrated and ends up contributing next to nothing, either by choice or by default because their partner (and I use that term loosely) did all the work.

As teachers we need to rethink how we work with others and in turn how we teach our students to work together. We need to teach them group problem solving skills and we certainly need to work on our level of patience. We need to show them that it is ok to take there time to find an answer, and when a friend or partner does not get the answer as quickly we DO NOT simply tell the the right answer, we help the find it for themselves. Positive team work is something that is missing in every aspect of our lives as adults. We need it in all of our relationships, for our jobs, and we need it now more than ever in the political arena. If we can successfully work positive cooperation into our classrooms than the relationships of the future will be more successfully founded on peaceful collaboration and compromise than on power dynamics.