Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Of team work and selfishness

Team work and selfishness or self-centredness do not belong in the same sentence, well, except in this sentence. These two terms do not belong together, as they are as different as white and black.
What has brought about this little post is the way some students have been behaving in preparation for competitions that require team work. As usual, I have the ever difficult cheer teams to work on, but I'll write about them later. Now the focus is on the choral speaking competition.
This competition is being held in school for the Form 1, 2 and 4 classes. I have been doing very little in class as the students need to practise for the competition which will be held tomorrow. I have been observing the students. I can identify those who just do not know how to work in a team. These students just do things as and how they wish. This only shows how selfish they are. If things do not benefit them personally, they do not bother much with whatever they have been instructed to do. This causes the entire class to get annoyed and irritated with these people.
  • Example 1 : All students were told to borrow baju kurung so that everyone looks uniformed as a team. There just has to be one, or even two, who are not bothered. Trust me, they just don't care, not because they cannot borrow.
  • Example 2 : Because some classes are way behind in practices, they need to stay back to practise together. BUT there just have to be a few who refuse to stay back, not because they can't but because they DO NOT WANT TO!
  • Example 3 : Memorising the script is not an option, it is a requirement. And yet, many still cannot be bothered to memorise. They just mouth the words, albeit wrongly.
It is so irritating to see these students not giving their cooperation to the rest of the class. It kills the team spirit

Okay, cheer. After having handled my cheerleaders for 3 years (this is my 4th year), I still see a lot of selfishness in some of the team members. I have groused over this several times. I still see it. Some people just never change. In any sport that is a team event, there is no room for individualism. In cheer leading, this can lead to accidents. And yet, some of them just do not see the need to work as a team. Their own selfish wants seem to be more important that the team's needs.

Well, we'll see how things transpire.

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