The Parallels of Positive and Negative Group Experience

While I have had many good experiences and bad experiences working in groups both at work and at school, coming up with an example of two that mirrored each other was a bit of a challenge. The best parallel example I can come up with actually speaks to more team work and hierarchical dynamics than I would have ever thought at the time, and the contrast of the two situations has definitely shaped the way I view my role in subsequent team efforts.

I'll start with the bad. As a freshman in high school I took honors Biology. It was a class which was somewhat selective to get into, needed both good grades and test scores in science to qualify, and was quite demanding compared to the work I had done in middle school. My teacher for that class was not very enthused about her job and liked to complain a lot. She used the Power Points made by the other honors Bio teacher at the time and sometimes struggled to answer student questions. That’s just some background, now to the more exciting part. In the second half of the year we were assigned a group project which was to write and illustrate a picture book which related to what we were talking about at the time. We were allowed to choose groups of three. I worked with two other girls in the class, one of whom was considered a class trouble-maker, though I’d just say she was outspoken. The problems that arose were primarily a result of poor administration on the teacher’s part. Extensions were granted to more than half of groups without good rational, but for some reason my group was not one of the favored and our deadline was not extended. This was where my group took the wrong path, and decided to retaliate against her unfairness. All three of us felt as though we were being mistreated, and when working on the project our negative energy fed off one another. Our final project, into which equal work was put by each of us and which was also turned in on time, offered a sarcastic and somewhat mean profile of the class. Not what she was asking for, but still covering the requirements of the project. Of course this only made her mad, and for the first time in my school career my parents were called and the teacher made threats such as holding us out of National Honor Society down the road as well as other things. None of us were considered good students by her after that, and she even called me stupid later on in response to my asking a question. It was one of the worst educational experiences I have experienced. This teacher, the person in the management position, did not respect her subordinates and did not treat the different teams fairly. Thus conflict resulted and questions of unequal treatment arose quite quickly. I still regret not taking more action against her, and ironically, all three of us “horrible students” were inducted to National Honor Society senior year, proving that her talk was purely talk, and that she had sorely misjudged us when we were in her class freshman year.

Flash forward three years, to my senior year of high school. I was again in Bio, this time at the AP level. By this point I had established myself as one of the top students in my grade, and had proved myself to be highly proficient in science. I participated in science fair through all four years and won a gold medal at state each time. My AP Bio teacher (different from my freshman teacher if that wasn’t made clear) was supervisor of the science club and had thus gotten the chance to know me as a student and a person prior to me joining her class. Much in the same way as my freshman year, we were assigned to do group projects. The one which best parallels the situation I encountered freshman year was a video project analyzing the southern blotting technique for a breast cancer gene. It was a group of 5 of us working together, and because of college visits we had reason to request a weekend extension past the due date. Rather than being brushed off as pesky students, this teacher listened to our request, trusted us as professionals who wouldn’t try to take advantage, and decided to extend the deadline for the whole class. In doing so, she both demonstrated her respect for us as well as made sure no group had an advantage over any of the others, ensuring fairness. I was proud of the work I had done and the attitude of the group when working together was on the whole very positive. Our final product stayed true to the rubric, and was exactly what she was looking for. Having an approachable and trustworthy supervisor, as in a case like this, can increase the moral of team members and create a positive atmosphere.

Administrative respect and fairness can be viewed as a gift given to subordinates, like in Akerlof’s Gift Exchange Theory. The gift given by the boss is a collaborative, positive atmosphere, and in return the employees deliver their best effort and ideally the output that was requested of them. Also important here was the strength of the relationship between not only group members themselves, but also between the superiors and subordinates. When it’s a mutually beneficial, things will go much better than if it’s parasitic (to use some biology terms). Age and seniority made a difference for the two situations as well, since as a senior I naturally garnered more respect than when I was a freshman.