Group Projects

Group projects=fail. In my opinion.

In a group project, everyone is supposed to pull some of the weight, right? Hence, the word GROUP. Well, it usually doesn’t work out that way. Let me break it down (aka Let me find an excuse to make a list).

• The Actor - This is the guy who acts like they do everything. Like if the teacher is walking around they’re like “Oh, wait, maybe I should start doing something so it looks like I’m totally helping out.” So the teacher will come by and they’ll be like, “K GUYS SOOO we should do THIS for our project, okay, everyone listen up!” And everyone else in the group is like, “Buddy, you might be in Drama but you really aren’t fooling anyone.”
• The Intense One - They’re way too into the assignment. Like INTENSELY into it. I had to work with someone like this in the simplest of group assignments — a Health worksheet — and everytime we’d start talking he’d get this intensely angry look in his eyes and be like, “Guys, can you STOP TALKING?!” And we’d just be like, “Dude, it’s a group assignment. Like we’re gonna talk.” Yeah…I think he had some ~issues~.
• The Legit One - This person actually does work. They’re the one that makes the group get stuff done, but without being The Intense One. In other words, they probably do most of it themselves because it’s too much effort getting the other slackers in the group to do stuff.
• The Slacker – Self-explanatory. They don’t do crap. They sit around, usually with another slacker, fooling off and being like, “K, so we done yet?” And then they get an A because The Legit One does an amazing job.
  …. not that I’m bitter or anything.

Basically, the reason I hate group projects is because one person always ends up getting screwed over and one person always ends up getting out of doing anything and they get the same grade. I know that there’s usually that “Individual Evaluation” junk  but teachers are stupid. They’re like, “Oh, everyone looked they were working…ALRIGHT A’S ALL AROUND!”

We have to do a History project that’s worth 200 points, which is basically the equivalent of two test grades. We’re allowed to work alone, but we’re also allowed to work in groups of two or three. I’ve had a few offers, but I’ve turned them all down, even my friends. Because the thing I hate more than group projects in school are group projects outside of school. Figuring out when everyone’s free to work on it, who’s going to do what when, when and where to meet BLAH BLAH BLAH. So I’d rather just work alone because I don’t have to coordinate with people and rely on people to get the job done. Two of my friends asked me if I wanted to be in a group with them because if I didn’t accept, “they’d actually have to do work.” So let me get this straight. You want me to be in your group so I can do the work for you? PRECISELY! Right, so a perfect reason why I’m going to say no. I know that they’d do some work, but I also know that I’d be the one coming up with most of the ideas and that’s just going to be obnoxious

So overall, I think that teachers would get a more accurate measure of what kids do if there weren’t group projects. I like working in groups in school for short assignments, but for big things there’s way too much pressure to get it done right for me to rely on other people to get me a good grade.

Teachers Have Problems

You probably have already figured out this fun fact about teachers. Most teachers have issues. If they’re smart (which is like one out of every seven thousand), they have some other obnoxious quality or weird past history that makes it awkward. Or they’re just plain annoying. I take six academic classes (the other two being gym and a study hall) and for every single one my teachers are: boring, annoying, have weird rumors circulating about them, have no idea how to teach, are obnoxiously hard graders, or have anger management issues and problems with kids that really need to be resolved. I think it’s impossible to have a regular, good, smart teacher.

The third quarter ends on Friday so every teacher thinks it would be a GREAT IDEA to give us a test/quiz/assignment/something completely pointless that is clearly just for the purpose of giving us a grade. Here’s a tip: PLAN BETTER. All the teachers should know that kids are completely swamped and stressed when it gets down to the end of a quarter because everyone’s freaking out about their grades (ZOMG I HAVE LIKE EXACTLY A 90 IN ENGLISH SO IF I FAIL THIS QUIZ THEN I DIE!) So they should realize that if they’re like, “Oh, no big deal, here’s an impossible quiz!,” every other teacher is doing the exact same thing. So then it’s like, “Oh I have 723841248 things to study for! YES!” Instead, it should be staggered–if I have six classes, then three of the classes should give me big graded assignments 1-2 weeks BEFORE the end of the quarter and then give us like some crappy in-class project to do if they want another grade. Every teacher shouldn’t be like UNIT TEST ON FRIDAY when the quarter ends on Friday…

Besides being sucky planners, half of teachers can’t even teach. (Okay, there is a random guy yelling outside my window–completely unrelated, but I had to say it). So yeah, if you’re going to give impossible tests, make sure you teach the material. Personally, I’d rather have a class be just like notes, problems, questions, and boring junk but where I understand everything we’re learning than it being like, “LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE TIME I WENT ON A SAFARI TO DJIBOUTI!” -takes up all but five minutes of the period- “Oh, wait, I have to teach you about this really complicated topic that’s on your test in 2 days!” Yeah, maybe you should get on that…

Teachers sometimes have emotional issues too. When teachers have problems in life, it seems to comes out when they talk to their students. (That’s when I’m like k, you need help). Sometimes, I feel bad for them, but if they’re complete jerks then I’m like, “LOOK I’m sorry that all three of your husbands have left you but don’t yell at ME when I ask you if I can go to the bathroom.” One of my teachers talks about her personal life pretty much 24/7 and either like cries about it or laughs about something hysterical that happened the day before and the whole class is just like “UHH…” like a bunch of idiots. (If you tell us a story in another language about something that happened to you and your kids and you think it’s hilarious, chances are we’ll have no idea what you’re saying and then you’ll just be cracking up in front of the class alone…AWKWARD.) I mean it’s fine to say something about your kid once in awhile but I really don’t want to know your whole life history, thanks.

One last thing. IF YOU DON’T LIKE KIDS WHY ARE YOU TEACHING?! There are two extremes on this kind of teacher. One is just completely apathetic and puts NO effort AT ALL into teaching. It’s literally like, “Today, we’re going to learn about cells. -sighs heavily- Okay, who knows what a cell is? No one. K, I’ll tell you.” Wow. You are completely boring, not engaging whatsoever, and have not an ounce of charisma. Leave. Or they just get mad at their students every five seconds and mutter about hating kids under their breath. “Can you repeat the question?” “I JUST repeated it FIFTY times. Maybe you should LISTEN instead of CHATTING with your friends!” -steam rises from ears- If kids annoy you this much, then find a job that is completely kid-free. Be like…an astronaut or something. But just stop teaching fifth-graders.

Once in awhile, I’ll get a fun, smart, genuinely good teacher. But they are few and far between. I honestly think that teachers make or break your grade. Maybe someday teachers will know what the heck they’re doing and actually have a passion for their job.

College Already?

Today, I had a meeting with my guidance counselor to “arrange” my classes for next year. First of all, I told my mom that I had such meeting, the date, and the time, which I figured was a given. Like, I’m not going to NOT tell my mom that I don’t have a meeting that’s going to plan out my classes for all of next year. Unfortunately, I was sorely mistaken as a few of my friends who think they are SO COOL (a few days ago, they were talking about Pokemon, obviously, the height of coolness) starting going “WHADDA NOOB, YOU’RE SUCH A NERD.” You just said noob. And I’M the nerd. ANYWAY, the point is I don’t think most kids’ parents came to their meeting.

After I told my mom this, she, after establishing that she could make it, said, “I have a few questions.”

Translation: The meeting will take forever.

So clearly this was a mistake on my part. I should have approached the situation in a more cunning way. The meeting was called for 8:45, right at the start of gym (hey, I wasn’t complaining about missing square dancing) and I figured, okay, I’ll be back at 9:00, 9:10 AT THE LATEST. I didn’t leave until 9:25. Hence, the reason I called my mother’s presence a “mistake.”

When I got home from school, my mom immediately started talking about colleges, GPA’s, classes, and the like (I could tell she had been thinking and researching all day). I’m taking a pretty challenging set of classes this year, so my GPA isn’t like a 4.0, but it’s not too far off. But then she went all “I went on this website and you can check out the average GPA and colleges and see what they are and SAT’s…”

…my head just started spinning a little.

So I went on the college website or whatever, because, yeah it’s interesting and kind of fun (fine, I am a little bit of a nerd). I don’t have my mind set on any college or anything yet, but my mom and I just clicked on the good ones to get an idea. The average acceptance GPA or whatever was usually a bit higher than mine is right now so my mom (like those Asian parents that those hilarious videos on YouTube make fun of) is all like “You need to bring your GPA up LA LA LA because its all so ‘competitive’ and they only take ‘the best’.”

This starting stressing me out. This is when I realized that college is FREAKISHLY SOON! Like, I just started high school, but I feel like I can’t relax for one second or its all COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE. I feel like a kid still, and I’m going to be in college before I know it. What happened to the time?

The Point of Tests

I’m pretty sure that as soon as you saw this title you thought one of two things:

“Is she retarded, what would be the point of school without tests?” or “YEAH THAT’S RIGHT TESTS ARE STUPID LETS BOYCOTT THEM!” *starts getting all rowdy and caveman-y about the whole idea*

The thing is, I don’t have a strong opinion either which way. Don’t get me wrong, tests suck. But why would people (or the few of us who actually do) pay attention in class if we knew we weren’t going to be tested on it? Yeah, we wouldn’t. School would be pointless (as of now, it has slight value). You could probably classify me as a “good student” (doesn’t sleep or throw spitballs or talk TOO much in class, does the homework, participates, makes mostly A’s) but if I knew I was never going to be tested on material, I would DEFINITELY not pay attention (you can’t fool me with the whole school-is-to-learn-don’t-worry-about-grades garbage).

Then again, there has got to be another way to make sure kids are paying attention without tests. Whoever made the whole test thing is annoying. They were a student once, they should know! If you break it down, I personally believe that way too much of a student’s life is revolved around school-related things:

1. Seven hours of school each day – okay, I can deal with this part. I actually don’t mind school

2. A good 2 hours each night doing school related things – there’s homework and STUDYING (this is where the obnoxious test issue comes into play)

3. Weekends, too! – We work 5 days a week, probably close to 10 hours a day on school stuff and they don’t even have the courtesy to give us a break on the weekends

I’m too lazy to do the math, but that’s like….A LOT OF HOURS. The time on the weekends is not spent doing homework (I save that fun stuff for boring classes and study hall. Plus you need a good panic attack every few days when you realize the teacher is grading homework and yours doesn’t have a dot of ink on it). It’s spent studying for various tests coming up that week. If I didn’t have to study, I’d be done my homework in an hour after school and have barely any work on the weekends (HEAVEN!)

I don’t know how they’d give us some kind of “assessment” (don’t you love when teachers use that word, thinking it sounds better than “test” – PLEASE) to make sure we weren’t COMPLETELY slacking off, but I don’t think stressing kids, especially high schoolers, out to no end studying for these tests is the answer.

What’s your opinion? Do you think there’s another way “testing” could occur?