Still Learning a 6th Grade Lesson...

Everyone who is both human and went through some form of middle school understands the following two truths:

1.)  Your mortal enemy will always be chosen before you when picking teams for kickball.

2.)  Group project assignments are worse than 3 weeks of detention. 

Both of these truths are relevant beyond the confines of the playground and the classroom.  Your mortal enemy will get the raise or the promotion.  The "sales project" being "pitched" with your new partner firm is going to be a disaster and everyone knows it.  

I learned these lessons like everyone else did--the hard way.  Particularly gruesome was my lesson in group projects.  It was 6th grade and the venerable (truly, the kindest adjective I could muster) Ms. Woodley had decided that we would be grouped up in fours and given the assignment of researching a sea creature of our choosing and creating a multimedia presentation on said creature which would be shared with the rest of the class.  Harmless, right?

I should take a moment here to preface what follows by saying that I was at that time and still am a pretty big nerd.  The prospect of such a project may have elicited groans and complaints from the majority of my peers, but I likely saw it as an opportunity to pick an awkward, unheard of sea creature and borrow the video camera.  

Short story long, my "partners" were not in the least bit interested in the project and were happy to let my enthusiasm for it carry through completing it entirely on my own.  They flipped through a few books with me in the library, half-heartedly suggesting boring sea denizens such as dolphins or seahorses.  They discussed how quickly one could run from the library to the playground and back while I chose our sea creature (the Sea Hare) and while the one girl in the group was disgusted, that was about the extent of their interest in the poor animal.  I put together a presentation with my home computer and made a video of the Sea Hare's natural habitat, complete with blue aquarium rocks, fake plastic plants, and an utterly inaccurate clay molding of the creature itself.  I tried to recruit their help in an effort to actually capture a Sea Hare in the tide pools beneath Palos Verdes ("Ew, that's SO gross!" she said again) but to no avail.  

About a week later, when we were to make our presentations, my groupmates became suddenly interested in the project and attempted to cram on the details of the Aplysia californica and its biology--perhaps introducing some of them to the term "Hermaphrodite".  The outcome was exactly what you might suspect.  Afterwards, Ms. Woodley interrogated my group about how the project was completed and who had contributed what.  I was magnanimous in my attribution of their participation and humble with regards to my own.  To my surprise, I found myself on the defensive as my groupmates turned on me in unison, claiming that I had somehow usurped the project, denied them access, and prevented them from having any kind of input on the outcome.  Still worse, Mrs. Woodley seemed perfectly happy to protect them and the work they hadn't done or even conceived of doing, demanding an account of my work and why I had abandoned the interests of the group for my own personal gain.  I felt betrayed and confused.  I had done the assignment!  I had spent the time and effort to do it better than anyone else!  I had done it for them!  My only mistake had been to follow my instincts and fill a need that need be filled.