Teaching teamwork

There's something teachers push in school: working in teams. The problem is that they never teach what that means.

When I was a student, the major problem I had always seen was that everybody in teams in school is equal to everybody else. Your team could have three members and get an assignment that could be to write 30 pages about a given subject. Something that would happen a lot is splitting the task such that each team member writes 10 pages.

I feel so stupid just typing that last phrase, even though it's just an example.

Total equality; fair, isn't it? It's also totally stupid. It totally ignores the talent and skills of each member as individuals. One of them could suck ass at writing. If there is such a person on my team, I certainly don't want that person to write a single word. Maybe that person is actually incredible at digging up information or getting interviews or making the design of the final document.

Schools suck ass at helping students figure out their strengths and to use those to improve themselves and benefit the team.

You can tell me that students could figure out that they shouldn't write 10 pages each, but I've never seen that happen. I've never even heard of that happening.

You could also tell me that it wouldn't be fair. Please throw fairness out the window. Getting things done isn't about fairness, it's about accomplishing things with the highest quality you can achieve when you combine strengths and acknowledge that you suck at certain things, but you're great at others.

Teachers of the world: teach your students how to work in a team, but before you do that, make sure you know what it means.

In my student life, I hated working in teams. In my career, I love working in teams.

This was originally posted on Facebook.