U.S. Schools Need To Assign More Of These

Over and over, we hear how the American school system is broken. We hear about underfunded schools with oversized classrooms taught by uncaring, untouchable teachers where kids graduate without knowing how to read.

Frankly, I’m not so negative. I believe most of our teachers really care about kids and most students get a good education. I believe there is great opportunity in the United States for people who really dedicate themselves to a pursuit, which is why people from across the world still try to come to America, above all other nations.

But there is one thing America’s schools could be doing better. And it doesn’t cost any more money. It just requires a change in philosophy (although, unfortunately, we are actually headed down the exact opposite path).

What American schools should assign more of is…. drum roll please…. group projects.

I know. You hated group projects in school. One of the first search results that pops up when you Google “Group Projects in School” is an article by Buzzfeed entitled “The 22 Most Annoying Stages of Doing A Group Project.” And I probably agree with all 22.

But just because kids hate them doesn’t mean they are a bad idea. In fact, just about everything kids hate (healthy food, trips to the doctor, not watching MTV) is generally a good idea, and that rings true for group projects.

Just look at the evidence.

The Evidence

We talk a lot that the goal of our education system is getting students “college and career ready.” So, if we are working to improve our schools, the logical move would be to see what skills recent graduates don’t have that colleges and employers are looking for, and then adapting to that.

First off, statistically speaking, we are doing a terrible job today of getting students “career-ready”, as the unemployment rate of recent college graduates is 10.6 percent. A big part of that is the economy, but a deeper dive shows that the chief complaint about recent graduates by employers – and a reason they aren’t getting hired - is their lack of soft skills, not hard skills.

There have been many studies into this exact issue, but a prominent one was done by Pennsylvania’s York College, which found that employers considered just 38.2 percent of recent college graduates to be professional. A Bentley College study dove deeper into the issue and found that many recent graduates were eager to pass blame, rather than coming up with solutions, and were poor communicators.

Both of those shortcomings are staples of someone who doesn’t work well with a team.

A Solution

So we know that many recent graduates don’t work well with others. And that makes sense, when you think about America’s education system and what it values.

With the influx of the Common Core and standardized testing, the focus of schools today is on improving students’ individual performance. We seek to improve their reading, writing and arithmetic; and if certain students do poorly, they are given extra help to improve their scores.

After all, funding is tied to those scores.

So, if Johnny is poor in math, he’ll get extra help with math. But if Johnny can’t get along with Stevie and Amanda and Chaitanya, will he get extra help with that?

Instead, with so many recent graduates identified as poor teammates, why not have more group projects, which will improve students’ ability to work with others? My inclination is that the reason that isn’t happening is that teamwork and other soft skills can’t be measured with a standardized test.

My Point

So what is work, from a 20,000 foot perspective?

Work is a giant team project. You work with others to accomplish a goal.

Yes, you have to master some hard skills to become a contributing member of that group. But just as important is learning soft skills, like how to work with others and how to get the most out of people.

The complaints we have about group projects in school are eerily similar to the complaints we say to our loved ones in secret about our co-workers: she doesn’t know anything, he doesn’t do any work, that guy gets all the credit. The faster we learn how to deal with all that, the more successful we’ll be.

From a hiring perspective, more companies are valuing culture above all else, with companies like Zappos and Southwest leading the way. If schools truly want to make students “college and career ready,” rather than just have kids pass tests, building those soft skills has to be part of the curriculum.

And the best way to do that is group projects, whether we like them or not.

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