When I’m in a class and the teacher announces, “Now, let’s get into groups,” my stomach turns, and I look out the door and imagine myself bolting out. ?I do this almost every day in one of my classes this semester. I’ve never been in a class that is put into groups so much. ?And I’ve never found it more unnecessary.
I’ve never been thrilled about being put into groups. ?In fact, you could say I hate it. ?You can call me shy, you can call me antisocial. ?It’s probably because I am. ?I have a tremendously hard time talking to strangers.
?I start to stutter and stop making sense. ?
I just find it a lot easier to get my work done to its fullest potential if I do my work alone. ?
I find it hard to discuss my work and ideas with people I hardly know. ?It makes me feel insecure, which makes it harder to get my ideas developed.
I know teachers use group assignments in order to help students get to know each other.
However, I couldn’t really care less who’s sitting next to me or diagonally from me. ?I just want to do my work, get it done, go home and sleep. ?
In high school I felt like everything was just one big social activity. ?I didn’t care about school all that much. ?
But now I’m in college, and I’m trying my hardest to get the best grades that I can. ?I think it’s better if I don’t know the person next to me so that I’m not tempted to talk.Then there are always times when you get put with the group of people who don’t want to do any work. ?
You’re the one that gets stuck with doing most of the work or maybe all of it. ?
Teachers always say not to leave one person up to everything, but it happens. In some cases, it’s better that the one person is doing all the work. ?
I know it sounds like I hate people and I probably have no friends. I do have a few friends, including one that I actually met at school and because of a group project we worked on together.
Even though I actually did make friends in that group, I still remember it being difficult because of the time and hassle it was getting a group of people together that work and have other classes. ?I think it’s just a lot less stressful when I know I don’t have group projects or assignments. ?
I know with every class I take when I receive the syllabus I flip through it checking for the words “group project.”
I also know I can’t just drop a class because of group projects. ?I wish I could, but then I’d be dropping at least one class a semester. ?I’ll just complain about it and groan along with the rest of the class.