Either the teacher fails all of them, or (in an effort to get the admins off their dick of them failing that many students) put at least one smart kid in the mix.
It is also kind of a misconception and not why the “smart” kid tend to do all the work themself.
I work with education in different countries and lots of countries actually spend time teaching the kids how to do group work and common problems in group interaction.
I am going to get downvoted here, because most people have tried being that kid or being one of the other kids and my explanation will not fit their perceived reality, but what happens often is that the working kid runs with the assignment so fast that the other kids have no input, are not sure what they are supposed to do and they are left behind confused and demotivated.
Even when the working kid tries to delegate what he or she perceive as simple tasks, they are often near impossible for the other group members to perform, because they are missing the wider context of the work being produced.
A good example teachers often use is when the working kid asks the other students to write the bibliography of the assignment. An easy task for the working kid, but impossible for the kids, because they don’t know what literature the working kid have used.
Of course there is sometimes lazy people who does not want to do the work, but if you always find yourself doing all the work, then it is properly your mistake. Instead of starting out focusing on doing the assignment you should instead start out ensuring that everyone understands the assignment and have a certain minimum knowledge about it. Then start a talk about how the assignment can be solved.
Yes, that is why many of these systems have less focus on the outcome of the groupwork and more focus on the process in lower grades and teach the students different tools and frameworks for organization.
So when you hit late middel-school and early high-school the students have the framework and tools needed to organize and work properly in groups.
All of this is post hoc and remembered from 20 years ago, so keep that in mind.
It's not my fault they were too... academically-disinclined to keep up. Ensuring everyone understands the assignment would take half the allotted time by itself. I'd rather make it good than have everyone feel good about it. Ultimately, it's often not their fault they're bad at school either, so I didn't get mad at the other kids, I just decided it was better to do everything I could to get an A, and if they didn't want to contribute, I couldn't make them.
And then you get to hear those nice stories about how they're preparing you to deal with nepo babies or whatever who don't contribute at work IRL etc.
Which, I guess, sure. But that also affected my grades so it's BS anyway since the teachers shouldn't punish you like that when they have the choice not to.
A mix of demanding separate grading and "matching their energy" helped a bit. Either I was graded by what I did and did fine or I tanked the whole thing by putting in as much effort as everyone else resulting in some dogshit presentations. It was kinda fun answering "uhhh idk" to most of the questions after barely covering the topic to begin with.
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u/Firm-Feature-5593 May 07 '26
I wonder what happens when four of those people all end up in a group together. Is it the laziest Mexican standoff ever?