All the Things that are Good for You: Broccoli, Shoveling Snow, and Group projects

Posted April 18, 2012 by Julie Steenson

You probably remember being a kid and being told, “Eat your broccoli…it’s good for you.”  As a parent, I have had said my fair share of “It’s good for you” moments in raising my daughter.  A couple of specific examples stand out:  “Stacking wood builds character,” and “I know it is hard to work in a group, but it is good for you.”
While I have no problem eating broccoli and I love to stack wood, I have had to eat my words on the group project thing.  Just two days ago, on a visit home, as I was stressing about an end of term group project, my daughter gave me a sympathetic smile and reminded me that group projects are good for me.
I have to admit that I wasn’t prepared for group projects at GSLIS.  I know we will work in a collaborative environment and so learning how to reach our goals with our peers is important, but there have been some real challenges.

Why it is stressful:

• We all have different demands in our lives: school, work, personal relationships, kids, parents, in-laws, to name but a few.
• We all have different schedules.
• We all have different time management habits.
• We all have different organizational styles.
• We all have different academic goals in meeting the requirements of a group activity.
• We are all good at different things.

Why it is good for us:

• Sometimes it is painful and feels like an extra, unnecessary requirement, and sometimes it is a relief to share the burdens of a project, to rely on someone else’s expertise and talents.
• Everyone we will work with, whether it be in a library setting, a school, a museum or a corporation, will also have different demands, skills, and goals.
• We all bring something different to the table.
• We all learn from each other.

But the most important reason it is good for us: A group project is a journey that doesn’t just teach us about other people; it teaches us about ourselves.  Discovering what you bring to the group turns out to be the most important reason that “It’s good for you.”