You are either the one who does all the work, or the one who takes all the credit for it. There doesn’t seem to be any in between when it comes to group projects.

Group projects should be used less frequently because they are unfair to students due to the lack of actual group participation, whether it be due to group members’ laziness or lack of understanding on the topic.

“When I was going to school, we sat in rows of desks, and we did most of our work autonomously. But nowadays, your typical classroom has pods of desks with four, or five, or six, or seven kids all facing each other,” said Susan Cain, writer and lecturer, during her speech “The Power of Introverts” on Ted Talks.

Many teachers and administrators argue that group work helps prepare the students for real life because very few jobs that can be done without teamwork, but the fairness in these activities is questionable.

“I can’t think of many careers where you’re going to be by yourself in a room, all day. You’re always going to have to work with people you like and don’t like, and people you know and don’t know very well, so I think it doesn’t matter what the topic is and it doesn’t matter what the class is, you always need experience working in groups,” Laura Cohen, science teacher, said.

It is true that students do need practice communicating and associating with people to prepare them for life, but once you do enter real life situations after, or even during, college, the people who are not doing the work during projects will not be in the same level classes or careers as those who are working hard on projects therefore, group projects should not be used as frequently.

For example, student who works hard to finish all projects and homework, has a good GPA, and gets all As probably will not end up in the same career as a student who does not do homework, does none of the work in group projects, has a terrible GPA, and gets Cs and Ds.

“Kids are now expected to act as committee members, and for the kids who prefer to go off by themselves, or to work alone, those kids are seen as outliers often, or worse, as problem cases,” Cain said.

Rather than harming their education by forcing students into unfair grading situations, our schooling system should be more focused on teaching the information fully.