Fnord wrote:
Disclaimer: Not my story, but I think it's appropriate . . .
Reason-to-celebrate wrote:
You want me to shut up...OK!
This happened when I was in high school, so it's very much like a teen drama but bear with me (excuse my grammar, I am not a native speaker).
I was assigned to do a presentation with a girl. She was the stereotypical popular and mean girl and I was more like the alternative type. She and her group never messed with me too much because I had a strong personality and my own friends so I never really cared about their opinions about me but they were really mean to other people.
She didn't want to meet to organize the presentation so I ended up doing everything by myself and I explained to her what she needed to say.
When the presentation started her part was first ... at some point she said something wrong so I politely intervened to kind of rectify what she said (I wanted a good grade so I was really polite to make it sound like part of the presentation) ... but She was furious and she said that "that's what she meant" and she didn't need my help because she knew everything perfectly and I should just shut up ... all this in the middle of the presentation in front of the class while her friends where nodding and agreeing with her.
Cue the Malicious Compliance
I was really surprised and felt bad so I just stood there but when it was my turn to talk I decided to keep standing there with a poker face without opening my mouth. After a couple of seconds or maybe a minute everyone started realizing what was going on and (fortunately) my teacher was really fast and he said "well, you told her to shut up so I guess you'll need to continue with the presentation" ... I still remember her red face.
Of course, the presentation was awful and everyone was laughing (tbh I was dying inside) and we got a low mark ... I didn't mind at the end because I was a good student so my other assignments saved me but she had to attend summer school. Oh she was upset! But it totally worth it...
Link to Page To all teachers out there: PLEASE do not make your students do group projects. If you do, please have them do the project in class and pay attention to how much work each student is doing so you can give each group member separate grades if necessary, or at least allow students to choose their own groups.
It is EXTREMELY stressful and demoralizing for a hardworking student to have to do an entire project on their own because they were assigned a partner who doesn't give a s**t about school and will never do their half of the project. To have to either get a bad grade despite trying their absolute hardest due to someone else they had no control over, or to watch someone else get a good grade without doing anything at all.
This sends the message to hardworking students that they will never be able to work in a group--because they couldn't convince a phone-addicted teenage goofoff to do actual work. (I don't mean any offense to teenagers here; this is just referring to certain teenagers.)
At a job, however, people WILL do their half of the work, and if they don't they will risk being fired (and they will realize this due to their fully developed prefrontal cortices). Even in college people tend to care more because they are paying directly out the nostrils to be there.
As someone who has had this experience countless times, I know this does far more harm than good. It sickens me to think how many students are put through this deeply distressing and discouraging experience each year because teachers actually think it will help them.
Sorry for the rant; I know it's not really related to the topic but I just wanted to say this in response to the previous post.
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Diagnosed ASD/ADHD age 5. Finally understood that age 17.
Have very strong opinions so sorry if I offend anyone--I still respect your opinion.
Neutral pronouns preferred but anything is fine.
Feel free to PM me--I like to talk about most things other than sports.