In my summer preceding my senior year in high school, I was one out of 20 other students from my school that was selected to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project. Our mission was to work with a local construction company to build homes for financially unstable families in the area of South Bend, Indiana. While many of the students applied to participate out of interest and a genuine desire to help, others applied in order to fulfill volunteer hours and get school credit. People's incentives for participating in the project, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, definitely showed in some more than others. Students that genuinely wanted to help out definitely put in more effort while students that clearly only came for the extrinsic rewards put in minimal effort.
For the most part, my group seemed to care very much about the quality of work we put out. We were constantly reminded that a family was going to live in the house we were building and our craftsmanship will correlate with how long the house will last for that family as well as how positively it will impact their lives. The main goal was to build the house to a high quality as if we were normal construction workers so that the families wouldn't have to pay any money to repair or tune any mishaps that we may create as a result of our limited knowledge and abilities. Of course, we were supervised and taught by our teachers as well as onsite professionals when dealing with more technical tasks such as tasks that required the usage of power tools.
I applied to participate in the program because it was going to be one of my last summers before I go off to college and I wanted to see and assist a community that may be less fortunate financially than the one I was born into to gain a little more perspective on life outside of my bubble. Unfortunately, not everyone participating felt as enthusiastic as me. One boy in particular, John Doe, was constantly complaining about how early we had to wake up, slacking off onsite, and not putting very much effort into his building tasks. Personally, I really dislike when people shirk in group activities when their input is necessary. At the time the most experience I had with working in groups was group projects, which I severely disliked, but in group projects everyone in the group will get a grade which is mostly enough incentive even for lazy students to participate. However, for volunteer work, such as this Habitat for Humanity project, students aren't promised anything extrinsic for participating. Even the credits offered were simply granted to us students for just being there. John Doe realized there was no extra reward for putting in extra effort so he put in the bare minimum amount of effort that still deemed him as participating.
As I continued to see the poor work John Doe was putting out, I started to get frustrated. If his craftsmanship was simply poor as a result of his lack of knowledge and skills I would understand because many of us, including me, made plenty of mistakes. However, even in simple tasks such as digging dirt or planting flowers John's work was always only partially finished to par. Hoping that he would change his outlook, I took the opportunity when we were alone to talk to him about putting in a bit more effort. I explained to him that our work here, even if it seems small, insignificant, or unrewarding, could mean the world to someone else. We grew up in a neighborhood where most people were relatively financially stable and I wanted him to understand not everyone was as privileged as us so that he might find meaning in the mundane tasks we were performing.
My perspective was that we were there to give and not to gain. It occurred to me after our conversation that he was there to gain and less to give. He explained that he was only participating because he needed the credits to graduate high school. While me and John were not hostile towards one another, it was evident to other people in our group that we had different internal goals. Other students began to realize this and even our teaching supervisors did as well. What ended up happening was we were generally placed at different tasks each day. The last thing that we needed in a service project was hostility between members so it made sense to keep us away from each other.
I can't say that it ultimately resolved "well", but we both didn't reach a "breaking point" either. After we were separated day after day we didn't have to interact with each other and entered an "out of sight out of mind" season. I still didn't like his lack of effort, but I began to let it go. I'm not so ignorant as to say "I couldn't have done anything to solve the conflict" because I know that there must have been something I could've done or said that would've resulted in less tension between us. For instance, while I thought I was being sensitive about calling him out on his work when I made sure no one was around to hear our talk, perhaps I could've phrased my concerns differently. At the time I was just frustrated because I felt bad for the people that would have to suffer because of his lack of effort and I may have projected that onto him. In retrospect, I could've been kinder when confronting him or I could've addressed my concerns directly to a supervisor. In many aspects of life we are required to work concordant with other people so learning how to handle conflicts is very valuable.
A couple of questions come to mind reading this story. The first is about selection into the project. Supposedly the teachers and the professionals who work for Habitat have some experience with this sort of thing. I would guess that they wouldn't want students like John Doe involved at all, for just the reasons that you talk about. What as the selection process to do this and could it have screened out John Doe types ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteThe other questions is about how much supervision and monitoring students had on this project? If John Doe's work was substandard, did others know about it? And if they did know about it, did somebody in authority have it out with him?
I do want to add that sometimes situations like this have no good solution. It is possible, in other words, the the right and proper answer here was for John Doe to sever from the project. I don't know that, I just want to put it out as an alternative. You should not come away from the experience with the expectation that all conflict can be resolved amicably. I don't think that is true.
His substandard work was noticeable not only by me, but also by staff and other students. However, despite supervisors' efforts John Doe knew they really had no "power" over him. They could have potentially threatened to revoke the school credits given for participating, but by definition he was still participating (though only reaching bare minimums). In most situations, though, John Doe would feign effort in the sights of supervision and slack when he didn't feel like he could be caught. In front of students he didn't care how his efforts were perceived.
DeleteI didn't say that I definitely could've solved the conflict. I agree that not all conflict can be "resolved amicably". I simply believe that I could have attempted to resolve the conflict differently that may or may not have resulted in the conflict being cleaned. I believe sometimes it's ignorant to say "there's nothing I could've done". Whether or not what you CAN do will solve the problem, there is generally a different approach you can or could have taken. In my post I wrote that I could've done something that would've resulted in less tension between us and I still believe that's true. For instance, I could've just not confronted him and there would've been less tension. To say that I had the ability and knowledge to resolve the conflict in retrospect would be rather arrogant.