I am fascinated by the idea of looking at the phrase “group work” more generally and not just in terms of school projects. In terms of my role in these scenarios, I typically find myself in the leadership role. I have found that many people are highly indecisive these days and I would include myself in that too. However, I know that someone has to make a decision, so I’ll happily step up and do that. Moments like this occur so often for me and one did last night. I am currently at the ACDA conference in Rhode Island and we were talking about where to go out to eat. Multiple people expressed wanting to go eat but no one looked into restaurants or had any preferences on what we were eating. I even looked up places and asked for opinions, but they were indifferent. I ended up picking the place and getting us there. Now I know this is a small example, but it is representative of situations I find myself in all the time. It always feels like I’m looked at to make decisions.
Now a more legitimate leadership position I held, was being captain of my football team for two years. After I was selected, the coach pulled me aside and told me I was the first junior to be selected as captain during his time on staff. This was a great honor and I feel like I made a genuine impact on the culture of not only the football team, but the school itself. I feel like I was able to serve as good role model, but also help different groups in the school feel more connected. The main reason for this is I was in the marching band and my best friends were in the marching band. There were many times after football games where people would come over to my house. Since I was friends with both football and band kids, I was able to invite both groups over. The cool thing here is that new friendships formed that would’ve never formed otherwise. My band friends were able to lose their previous opinions on the typical “jock” football player and my football friends were able to do the same for the “nerdy” band kids. These were special moments to me and I look back on these times with a smile on my face.
As for times where I’m just along for the ride, this has been much of my experience in my first year at Penn State. I’m not in any leadership positions and everything is new. This is a different change of pace after coming from high school.
Now for the relation of group work to civic life, I think there are a few outcomes that are all dependent on the culture. So, the decisions of how and who is included in group activities or deliberations means everything. For example, if the deliberation is being led by one or two people who are clearly in positions of power, the other people simply won’t go against them. The power dynamic discourages vulnerable contributions from anyone else who isn’t in one of these positions.
Oppositely, if the culture is strong and encouraging for people to share their ideas, this could lead to much success for the group. People are more willing to work hard for the organization when they feel valued! A deliberation committee with these values would serve wonders for a community.
The topic of when also plays a role in any community group. Depending on the meeting time and location, this could discourage many groups from participating. This is clearly not ideal for a community because not all perspectives are received.
All in all, there are so many factors that go into deliberations and the group work that comes with them. They are crucial to the success of any community and I find it valuable to have conversations like this one. If we stop having conversations, we would never know how to make things better or even take the first step in the right direction.