::A Geek in Korea::

I have a group of students that I’ve taught for a month that needed to do a project for class. I had them write short plays they had to present to class. The goal was to have them memorize four lines of dialog each, work together to present their material, and to work as a team. I didn’t let them pick their own teams, and instead assigned them groups. This, of course, ruffled everyone’s feathers because I didn’t assign groups by gender. I assigned them by a particular seating arrangement and weathered all the criticism about my decision the first day.

I told the students that they must be pro-active and put in time to finish the project for their group. I gave them time in class to delegate their responsibilities, but only two of the groups decided to use the time to figure out what they needed to do and assign their tasks properly. The other group decided to fight me and refuse to work together. The boys wouldn’t talk to the girls, and when the girls got around to setting up the scenario and arranging the dialog the boys protested that their dumb ideas were being ignored. I was in “Put up or shut up” mode and wouldn’t allow any sort of changing of groups or splinter groups to form. The groups that got to work right away had their materials ready to memorize before they went home on the first day. They needed “masks” and to memorize their lines to complete the activity.

They had an entire week to organize everything between classes and finish up. They met once between the time I assigned the project and before the actual “performance” that I recorded for their parents. If anyone was responsible in the group they had plenty of time to get the work done, as evidenced by the two successful groups in the class that had their stuff ready to go on time. The two responsible groups had hilarious, cute plays I recorded with the school’s camera. I’ll show the parents in conferences this video when I get it off the camera.

The irresponsible group ran into a snag. The girl that had written the materials had forgotten to type it up and distribute extra copies. Everyone else tried to blame her for not having a second script to work from. “I couldn’t memorize my part of the script because I didn’t have a copy. I couldn’t email anyone else because my computer motherboard is broken. There is no way I should have to present the material. It’s not my fault! Don’t make me do it!”

All four students claimed that each of their computers were broken, absolving them of responsibility. I told the students that they didn’t have to type something up to memorize it, so that if they wanted to just write something in class instead of trying to weasel out of the assignment they could be working RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT! I told them that while they might not have their original script, something was better than nothing, so if they all work together while the other students presented, they could have something small instead of nothing at all.

The very same girls that wanted to try to work in class before got down to writing a short one line script for each of the students in their group. The boys, of course, contributed nothing and continued to whine. I have no way of knowing, but if I had to put money on something explaining the boys behavior in class I’d say they were definitely “First sons” in their family. Probably no one actually enforces rules around them at home, so they think if they pout and whine loudly enought they’ll get out of everything.

I can not STAND this attitude in teenage students. Students that whine about needing to go to the bathroom only after they see someone else go first. Students that get caught hitting someone in class as say, “Oh, he STARTED it.”

While the video I took is daming enough just showing the amount of effort involved for the different groups, what I really need to do is record the sheer number of ridiculous lies and stupid complaints that come out of these students mouths when I ask them to do ANYTHING.