"In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question."
This is the essence of what's so destructive and horrifying about today's obsession with groups: the idea that everyone in the group is equal. Equal in talent, equal in work ethic, equal in drive, and equally entitled to being heard. And that the consensus of the group of purported equals is more important than the achievements of any of its constituent members.
The plain, and perhaps un-PC truth is that that's a load of hogwash. Some perspectives are better than others. Some people are smarter than others, or work harder, or are better read, or are more knowledgeable, or are more capable. Some creative visions are more correct than others, even if we imagine that it's not possible to be "correct" or "incorrect" in the praxis of creative expression.
Beyond these variances in ability or capability, we also encounter variances in style. As noted in the article, some people simply work best alone. Some disciplines -- writing, coding, art, etc. -- simply lend themselves well to conditions of quiet, relative isolation, and to long bouts of individual effort. That effort can be in service of a team, or as part of a team, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that creating by committee is in some way ideal.
The creative output of a committee tends to revert to the average creative capability of the least creative member on the committee. Social psychological studies have borne out that fact, and anyone who's ever been on a design committee knows it from brutal experience.
That's not to say, of course, that group brainstorms and the like can't be productive. They certainly can be. But the people in the group are everything. They need to be very sharp and very creative. They need to get along well enough not to clash over personal matters -- but not so well that they simply agree with one another and revert into groupthink. But such groups are rare, and I dare say that they're the exceptions to the general rule. High-functioning creative teams are things of beauty, but they're not for everybody or every situation.
Finally, the structure of a group is critical to its success (or failure). Groups with well established divisions of labor tend to be more productive, and far less painful, than groups in which everyone does everything together. Ever try to write a school paper as part of a team? It was either a horrendous experience or a fantastic one. The horrendous teams sat down together and drafted every sentence, laboriously and unceasingly, by committee. The fantastic teams either divided up the sections by areas of interest or expertise, or delegated the task of drafting the paper to the person who expressed interest and professed great ability in writing -- allowing everyone else to do research, discuss and debate the topics, and so forth.
"In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question."
I'm going to guess that the idea here is that if someone in the group has a question, and another member of the group knows the answer, then they can resolve it within the group. Funny how the same thing can be framed so differently isn't it?
I used to be a teacher and received training to instruct exactly as you describe. The idea is that students are supposed to ask each other first, and if no one else in the group knows, then they ask the teacher. I have very mixed feelings about the push towards group work, but I will say that in much of the inner-city, asking a peer for help on anything is considered pitiable weakness. So the idea of getting kids to learn to work together and help each other when they can, is, at least in it's conception, not altogether terrible.
I believe that is an extreme and cartoonish conclusion to draw from so little information. How do you know that is the experience the children have?
The sister comment from another teacher brings facts to the table that explain the intent of the exercise, which is limited in scope and aimed for a specific purpose. Good or bad it is a game to attempt to teach kids it is ok to admit they don't know and to ask for help from their peers. If you consider how often and how ennervating it is when our adult colleagues can't admit not knowing, I think you can understand why someone crafted this exercise.
I have enough information to tell that children in this case are forbidden to ask their question unless everyone in the group has the same question, because that information was explicitly given. This is not the same rule as one which allows an individual child to freely ask the teacher whatever he likes, whether his groupmates want to ask or not, if he still feels like asking after trying his peers first.
The former process is controlled by the group; the latter, by the individual.
I agree that it sounds like a bad idea, but you're just having a knee-jerk reaction. You don't have enough information to make that judgement. How do you know this wasn't a well crafted exercise designed to teach certain elements of social interaction? I guarantee you a good teacher could use a situation like this as a tool to teach the class something valuable.
Hell, it could be an exercise to teach students the dangers of group think. It would be intellectually dishonest of the author to frame the situation in the way that she did, but we have no idea of the context. Did the author watch the whole class and speak with the teach afterward, or did she just observe the class for a few minutes?
Without more context you just don't have enough information to make such a damning judgement.
I am going to think beyond my programming, as it were, for a moment and make myself vulnerable.
I have a faulty logic. When I post something controversial, I often feel insightful while drafting it, but my 'spider sense tingles' because I innately fear downvotes. If it does, then I get upset because I feel that I made myself vulnerable by sharing something I should have kept quiet since it was not popular. Since an account apparently becomes 'dead' after enough downvoting, this is roughly being punished, at least digitally.
The faulty logic really kicks in when I use the same expectation of group reaction to garner upvotes. I feel satisfied when I get 10 or 15 upvotes, even though those posts are very often just aligned with what I suspect is popular opinion. I feel great, but gloss over the reality that I didn't really add anything new. It's like eating some chicken mcnuggets - I didn't really get anything out of it but it felt good.
There's a sort of protective stance people use in online posts, a deflection of anticipated peer reaction. Comment armor. "I know I'll get downvoted for this", "I know I'll get a -1 flamebait", "karma be damned" etc. We see this posturing all the time on karma based websites. Watch, I'll do this exact procedure in my closing sentence.
I know we're not supposed to complain about downvoting but I believe that's in a meta sense and since this topic is about groupthink, I believe it's relevant to discuss as part of the topic.
I've been grouped with people who always try to find a reason for something not to work. Their worldview seems very limited in that they never push the status quo; they don't seem to look very far into the future and they can't seem to recognize what's possible with some hard work. Maybe they are afraid to step outside of their comfort zone. They would probably call themselves realists. Coincidentally enough, through my personal experience, I've found that these types of people tend to be "control freaks". (Sorry for lack of a better word.) There's definitely some correlation between trying to control situations and only attempting what is a sure thing.
I've also been grouped with people who, like me, are constantly trying to do things differently for the better. For every idea, they try to figure out how and why it will work, if it isn't immediately obvious; but if they don't also take time to determine whether or not it is the best solution, it could be detrimental in the long run. This is where the qualities of each person within the group becomes important. Not everyone can find the balance between dreams and reality; more often than not people lean towards one side so they need to be paired with someone on the other.
Too many realists in a group and you'll see little to no innovation. Too many dreamers in a group and you may never see the project's completion. Although I personally would put my money on the latter any day.
But if one person can find that balance by themselves, I think that's when creativity (and sometimes productivity) exceeds that of a group.
This is the essence of what's so destructive and horrifying about today's obsession with groups: the idea that everyone in the group is equal. Equal in talent, equal in work ethic, equal in drive, and equally entitled to being heard. And that the consensus of the group of purported equals is more important than the achievements of any of its constituent members.
The plain, and perhaps un-PC truth is that that's a load of hogwash. Some perspectives are better than others. Some people are smarter than others, or work harder, or are better read, or are more knowledgeable, or are more capable. Some creative visions are more correct than others, even if we imagine that it's not possible to be "correct" or "incorrect" in the praxis of creative expression.
Beyond these variances in ability or capability, we also encounter variances in style. As noted in the article, some people simply work best alone. Some disciplines -- writing, coding, art, etc. -- simply lend themselves well to conditions of quiet, relative isolation, and to long bouts of individual effort. That effort can be in service of a team, or as part of a team, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that creating by committee is in some way ideal.
The creative output of a committee tends to revert to the average creative capability of the least creative member on the committee. Social psychological studies have borne out that fact, and anyone who's ever been on a design committee knows it from brutal experience.
That's not to say, of course, that group brainstorms and the like can't be productive. They certainly can be. But the people in the group are everything. They need to be very sharp and very creative. They need to get along well enough not to clash over personal matters -- but not so well that they simply agree with one another and revert into groupthink. But such groups are rare, and I dare say that they're the exceptions to the general rule. High-functioning creative teams are things of beauty, but they're not for everybody or every situation.
Finally, the structure of a group is critical to its success (or failure). Groups with well established divisions of labor tend to be more productive, and far less painful, than groups in which everyone does everything together. Ever try to write a school paper as part of a team? It was either a horrendous experience or a fantastic one. The horrendous teams sat down together and drafted every sentence, laboriously and unceasingly, by committee. The fantastic teams either divided up the sections by areas of interest or expertise, or delegated the task of drafting the paper to the person who expressed interest and professed great ability in writing -- allowing everyone else to do research, discuss and debate the topics, and so forth.