Why does our school system focus on individual performance? Should there not be some focus on teaching our children how to work in a group?

Today I went to a building partnerships meeting at our school district. It was with our new principal and the speaker was very motivating and thought provoking. It was sorta like one of those team building exercises, complete with a puzzle… but it was good. The speaker was motivating. And little stuff like this always gets me thinking.

We spend so much of our time rewarding people for individual achievements but really… how much of what we do in the workplace is related to individual achievement? How often are you really working alone?

When I worked at Microsoft, I was surrounded by mostly really smart people. I loved that. And most of the mostly smart people worked very hard. So how do you determine the value of individual team members when they are all smart and good contributers? There’s a value judgement that takes place. And you know what it is? It’s how political they are. How much money you get was directly proportional to how well you could work the system. It was not based on how well you did your work..but rather how effectively you could drive your vision and sell it.

So in the school system, we are focusing completely on how well our children “do”. But maybe what we should be focusing on is how well our children do in a team environment. Maybe we should have classes on how not to get voted off the island. Maybe we should teach them how to negotiate and market ideas. Maybe we should teach them political skills verus simply dropping them into the cess pool of real life. Maybe we should teach them that the path to success is not simply just “white knuckling” your way through with sheer brain power but rather learning to navigate teamwork in a social setting.

I dunno. Just interesting to think about.

Related posts:

  1. Life is damn good
    2.    I am grateful for my life. I really...
  2. Parenting Memo to Hubby
    3.   Have you ever thought about what our goals...
  3. Workplace Survivor
    4.    If I had to narrow down the biggest lesson...