and it also brought back a quote once posted by a friend of mine that said, "If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together."
In my life I always hate group work because I realize that I cannot move fast inside a group, well it depends on who the group members are. By being in a group, I always believe that there's no longer "I" or "Me" there will be only "we" or "us". I don't like the most when in a group, people keep saying, "I" or "My opinion". And that also the very reason why I don't like group work, because if there're differences in opinions, then as a group, we have to sit together in order to reach a common perspective towards that certain things.
This is where the strongest part and the weakest part or a team work lies. As person, we can't be expected to know all the things in the world. We can only know so much and when we form an opinion, it will be limited to what we know. But on the opposite side, if we want to take a fast action, this will be a good measure to do it. But in a group, we are a collection of several people with different background and knowledge, and as a group we can complete each other, that's where with a group, we can reach a deeper level of understanding and it will make us even a better person because we learn to listen to other people's opinion.
There's a catch to it though, we need a group of open minded person who are willing to open their ear and mind to listen to what others has to say. If we imagine that we all have wall behind us, that is our knowledge, but there are a lot of holes in that wall. How can we perfected our wall if we prevented others to put a brick on that hole in the wall? Well, the thing is, firstly we have to realize that no wall including our wall is perfect. Each of us has a certain brick that can fill the holes that we have in our wall.
But in Singapore, there's a term named Kiasu.
Well, I don't know the exact meaning but the wikipedia said, it means "Fear of losing" so we try everything at our capability to win. Now, the thing about winning is that there can only be one winner. Now if someone said this to you, "There can only be one winner", my question to you would be, "Are you willing to help others???"
The question apply on the bell-curve system, "This year, only 20% of you will going to get A..."
Are you willing to help the other 80% to excel together?
In my point of view, Bell-curve system is good for a stupid-teacher-type-kind-of-thing. So if the teacher teach badly, it will only be fair to the student if the grade is distributed fairly among the students, because it's not fully the student's fault.
On a first sight, Bell curve will foster competition rather than co-existence.
If we took this to the real world, bell-curve is actually similar to what happen in the real world. All of us are going to compete towards a certain position in an office, because there can be no two bosses on one place.
I would like to offer you an alternative point of view. Well, basically it's based on my personality of a non-high-achiever. I found it super-weird for myself who aims to be a President.
If we try so hard to be on top where we kick, punch and push other people that stand in our way, the top position will be a very lonely place to be. What for a high grade and/or high position if we only ended up alone up there?
From a modern leadership point of view, "Leader nowadays not always have to be the one who stand in front of everybody. Now it more like a rafting in a rapid water where leaders are leading from the back."
All that matters now is working together and people that are willing to listen to you. If you stand in front as a leader but no one wants to listen to you, then it has no meaning at all. Or if you get an A in class but no one wants to be friend with you, it also means nothing. Pure competition will only bring loneliness to our life, but it doesn't mean that we can't be competitive in this life. We can compete with one another but one thing to remember in this life is that we can't exist without the existence of others, so try to have a peaceful co-existence with other people in this life.
If we find others are having difficulties in his/her life why don't we just lend a hand and help them out of their misery. Rather than we just walk pass by them and happy for their misery because we know we can excel on their cost. Instead of we walk that gate of success alone, why don't we walk out of that gate of success hand in hand together? There's no harm in that. If there's such a bell curve, and everyone has the similar score, perhaps... just perhaps, we all can get an A.
Together we can make a narrower distribution of score rather than a very wide of score distribution. Rather than the score range from 100 to 10, Together we can make the score range from 100 to 80 or 90.
I really hate how the bell-curve applied and the education system who put ban on working together. Because individualism and the bell-curve are not supposed to exist one another. They can foster a highly competitive people who are "Kiasu" (pardon my term). bell-curve is suppose to value on the co-existence instead of competition.
Well, that's just my opinion. I can't see the wrong in working together as long as the ultimate goal is achieved. No matter it's an individual assignment or more over if it's a group assignment. Now, if the thing that we want to measure is an individual ability, then the correct way is trough exam where we are contained in a room and working together is really prohibited. But as long as there's no contained room, why ban the 'working together' element...?
Well, my favorite is Individual Assignments, but working it together. So we share our knowledge but at the same time, it's an individual thing and if we are disagree at some point, we are still free to be an individual who holds dear to our own idealism.
But one more thing about idealism, always try to keep an open mind because our idealism has to evolved along with the change that happened outside of our own little universe.
So, instead of win alone, Let's WIN TOGETHER....!!!
Image source:
http://dailytattoo.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/wrist-365-coexist.jpg
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