Science fair partner not carrying his weight

In My Humble Opinion
1

At the son’s school, the 6th-grade science fair is a “pairs” event. He either chose or was assigned (doesn’t really matter which anyway) one of his best friends as his partner. The science fair is Friday, and I couldn’t be happier that this whole thing is going to be over at last!

So, here’s the deal. As far as I can tell, his partner has not done one lick of work on the project. They got together once to decide what they were going to do, but other than that, my son has done everything else. Unless a miracle occurs in the next couple of days, I assume my son will also put the entire display together. There was one Saturday when his partner just flat-out refused to get together with him to work on the project, and three or four evenings when my son tried to reach his partner by phone and never had his calls returned.

When the report on the project was due last week, I asked him if he was putting both his and his partner’s name on it. He said he was. I asked him how he felt about his partner getting equal credit when he’d done none of the work. He said he was fine with it.

Part of me is considering this to be a lesson for my son on one of the unfortunate realities of group work, namely, if you don’t want your grade to be dragged down by the slackers, you end up doing more than your share, but they share the grade. And that reality doesn’t necessarily change when you are in the working world.

Part of me feels like his teacher ought to know that his partner let him down, but that feels like ratting. (The truth may come out anyway if his friend gets quizzed on the project by the teacher.) My son is not comfortable saying anything to the teacher. (He also apparently isn’t comfortable saying anything to his partner.) I’ve wondered if I should call and have a conversation with his partner’s mother, but I’m not sure what that would accomplish.

It’s a thoroughly mediocre project, by the way. It’s not like my son is sharing credit for Nobel-quality work.

Dopers, how would you handle this?

2

I am not a parent, so take this for what it’s worth.

I think the best thing to do is encourage the teacher to discuss the project with your son’s partner. That way, if the kid receives a lower grade than your son, it will be clear that it’s his OWN fault – not yours or your sons. The ol’ “no one likes a tattletale” thing applies here, so don’t be one and don’t encourage your son to be one. Just give the other kid enough rope to hang himself, so-to-speak.

3

Same way you did. I’d tell my kid that the lesson you learn from “working in groups” is: If you want something done, you have to do it yourself (or something along those lines), the time-honored life isn’t fair, etc. Then I’d compliment the child for all the fine work he did on the project, and maybe offer some tips for the next time he has to deal with a similar situation.

It’s not a perfect solution, but then I’ve never been one of those parents who goes to the teacher about every little thing. Besides, isn’t this exactly what teachers expect when they put kids in groups?

4

With a sixth-grader, I would handle it as my kid wanted it handled. If he’s okay with putting the other kid’s name on the project, then I would not overrule him. You might not be doing your son a favor to make a big deal out of it if he would prefer you didn’t. Chalk it up as a lesson in working with others. Next time he will know he either needs to choose a better partner, or push harder for more help, or he’ll end up doing all the work again.

5

I would recommend my kid not put the slackers name on the project & discuss it with the teacher, but I wouldn’t force the issue. It’s his fight, let him bring it or let it go.

I’d also point out that that’s life - sometimes you get paired with slackers and some one still has to do the work, and also note this is pretty much what we parents mean when we say “Life isn’t fair.”

6

One possibility is there’s some informal quid pro quo, with your son doing this project and the other kid doing something else, like helping your son get to know the “little red-headed girl*” or buy illegal fireworks or who knows what.

Personally, I think at this age you’re still OK to give the teacher a heads up to quiz the other kid. 6th grade is a little young, IMHO, to expect your son to straighten out the group work, and the little slacker shouldn’t be encouraged to continue his evil ways.

For older kids, I’d recommend making out a project plan and assigning action items, and handing that in as part of the project. That way the teacher knows who did what. And just the act of starting the project out that way sends a message to the slackers.

*from Peanuts

7

Drop a note to the teacher:

"Dear Ms. Blah-blah:

I am writing to inform you that if Slackerboy and Freeson’s science project sucks balls, please do not blame Slackerboy, as he contributed no time, effort, materials, or expertise to the project. It will be entirely Freeson’s doing if it tanks.

Sincerely,

Freckafree"

8

Hell, that might be the point of the entire exercise. There’s no other good reason to assign group work outside a scientific or corporate setting, in my opinion.
I think contacting the teacher is a bad idea, and has the potential to make you and your kid look bad to both the teacher, the other kid, and his parents. Your son has to still go to school with this other kid, possibly for years, and it’s never smart to make enemies. School is no different from an office in that respect, except in school your enemies might just beat the shit out of you. (This might also explain your son’s laconic approach–he might not want to make this other kid mad.)
Having said that, I would tell my own son in this situation to leave the other kid’s name off the final report, say nothing about it to anyone, and be as unhelpful as possible in a nonconfrontational way if someone started asking the other kid questions. Basically, the goal is to make clear who did the work, without the other kid catching on he’s been cut loose. Don’t give him or his parents an overt act to hang some vendetta on. It’s better for your own kid that way.

9

Stay out of it. If your son makes a habit of letting other people freeload off him, you might want to talk to him about it, but otherwise don’t meddle in his school relationships any more than you have to.

10

I thought parents were supposed to work on their child’s projects.

11

Not until their kid tells them about about it at 8p the night before it’s due. :wink:

12

Just hope like hell that she doesn’t get offended at being called Ms. Blah-blah.

13

I am not a parent but that’s what I was going to suggest. It doesn’t have to be a mean conversation. I remember when I was a kid that parents would have these little talks all the time - if Billy and Bobby are getting into fights, their folks would talk and help get it worked out.

As for what it will accomplish, perhaps the other kid will learn what it means to work in a team and not to expect other people to do his work for him? And maybe your son will get a little confidence so that the next time someone tries to pull the same stunt he can just say “Nope, you have to help too.”

14

I’m going to guess that Valgard is relatively young, like under 35. Giraffe’s response is the same as mine - we’re the Leave it to Beaver generation talking. Ward Cleaver had to restrain June from meddling in Wally and the Beav’s relationships, so they learned self-reliance.

Apparently when Ward croaked June’s reflexes took over. Subsequent generations have embraced the notion that part of a parents’ job is to mediate their children’s disputes, lobby their teachers for special treatment, and beat the crap out of the other team’s ref.

Shame on you people. This is none of the parents’ beeswax.

15

Incidentally, I’m having this same problem with my learning team in a distance learning Master’s program I’m in. We’ve got one complete deadbeat who is sucking the fumes of the other two members of the team and is not likely to contribute one iota to the final 75p. term paper. He gets equal credit/blame for whatever we turn in, modulo whatever “team review” feedback we turn in at the end of the course. I may never know what his final grade is, so I’ll have to live with whatever satisfaction I can get from making my review comments about him. I may have to post a draft in the Pit.

16

I’d probably just advise he suck it up and recognize it as one of the realities of schooling.

Truth be told, I loved being with a partner in junior high and high school who didn’t want to do any work.

In fact, I used to specifically pick a friend of mine throughout school, whenever we had the same class, for that reason. He knew I didn’t want any help, and he knew I’d get him a good grade on the project.

To me, I always hated that so many of the group projects in school were reasonably and entirely completed by one person, yet the teacher mandated a partner. On those types of projects, I didn’t want to collaborate with others, I wanted to do the work myself, get it done, get it done right, and not have to carry someone else through it or suffer their ideas.

When I graduated and moved on to higher education, there were some projects where each individual had a significant workload, in those cases, it made sense to have multiple people and I welcomed it. In fact on such projects when I’d be in a team of 4-5 students doing a semester-long project worth a huge portion of the grade, we’d divide responsibilities and meet once a week to coordinate everything.

In that sort of situation, I would have definitely gone to the professor if one person wasn’t doing their share, because it would have been too much work to easily absorb and since we had divided responsibilities, it would conceivably throw off the entire project for one person to just not do what they’re supposed to do.

Of course, even at the collegiate level some professors will assign “group work” to projects that just simply don’t require more than one person to “foster teamwork skills” which mostly was BS in my opinion.

17

It may not help you to hear it, but I had a similar situation when I was working towards my masters and the deadbeat got royally screwed over. It was a similarly large project and one person was totally non-responsive in doing his work. We eventually just did it in its entirety without him, and put his name on the project at the end. At the time I was still active duty and was taking the course while serving, it was one of the last I needed to finally be done with the entire program, I was in general busy otherwise and just wasn’t in the mood to press the matter further. However one of the women in my group said she planned to talk to the professor about the situation.

About three days after we submitted the paper, I got a phone call from the professor. I had no intentions whatsoever of turning this guy in, but since the woman had already turned him in and the professor asked me directly how much work the guy put in, I truthfully responded that the guy had put in absolutely zero work and had met with the group only once, the very first time.

I actually got a call from the guy about a month later, he asked me what I got on the project, when I told him he told me he thought there was some kind of mistake, because the prof had given him only 25% of the total points possible for the project, which dropped his overall grade in the class from a low B to a mid-D (he had to get a C in the course for it to count towards degree progress.) I had to keep from laughing when I told him, “there was no mistake, someone reported that you didn’t participate in the project and apparently the professor reduced your grade because of it.” Guy was pissed and wanted to know who, I wouldn’t tell him and that was the last I ever heard from him.

18

This is part of the conflict I’m feeling. I’m 48 with an 11-year-old. My instincts are definitely Leave it to Beaver, but the phenomenon you’ve so beautifully described, sunacres, is real AND part of the school culture. For many, “being an involved parent” equals doing your kid’s work for him/her – whether it’s arithmetic or standing up to a slacker partner.

Kalhoun… :smiley:

So, I’m leaving it alone. My son has a very generous nature, and I don’t want him to be taken advantage of, but neither do I want him to lose that generosity.

I’m hoping for the “give him enough rope to hang himself” outcome. (And I really like his partner!)

19

What I did, I made all the signs in my handwriting. Also the little bit where it says the names of the members of the team. I left room for the other guy’s name. Which he wrote in his handwriting. I passed it as a considerate gesture but the message was very clear to the teacher. All that guy did was sign his name.

As a variation on it, misspell his name. He either corrects it, which shows that he only saw it at the last minute, or he doesn’t which shows that he didn’t even do that.

20

On the contrary, you’ve lightened my load by a good 35 pounds!