Helping hand or ...

After 5 semester of projects, i think we have seen the best and worse of people through the projects. Some just simply heck care, some knew that their best friends will cover up for them and do their best to exploit while some will fight and stick with you till the end.

I have done it in my way by trying to help them improve their abilities in one way or another and in the midst of it being accused of being autocratic, selfish or described as a tyrant. However, when i look back and reflect on what i have done, i think i have done my best as a friend. One of my friend was kicked out by me during an earlier semester, i had warned him that he is going in the wrong direction and indeed that was what happened. He even had to meet the programme director to review his case, cause yah SIM-RMIT do kick people (I have witness 1 case). I think during that time, i was the only one who still talk to him and try find out what he can do. Many people who said i was mean when i scolded him earlier, was just avoiding him. Today, this friend of mine is a changed man, more responsible, motivated and have a sense of direction where he is going. Sometimes allowing people to fall and helping them to stand back again might actually help the person to be much stronger than before.

In another case, which i also had to kick someone out, the situation turn ugly but still i find that it benefited the person. The person had a poor attitude, the ironic thing was she kick someone out earlier because of the same problem, in the end she still feel that we gang up on her ... so whatever. But my last word to her is this, she got 3 excellent grades for free for nothing. We remove her before the last project started and not during so that she can find another team. If we wanted to play her out as she had claimed, i guarantee i would have make sure she got no chance of finding another team, that's really playing out but we didn't. If she had not got out then and we let her continue and say during semester 5 in her own words, just tell the person we got enough people and kick her out on the spot, wouldn't the damage be much greater? Definitely yes, i think those who went through sem 5 would have known how important the group is. I also believed, she knew she would be left behind if she had shown the same attitude therefore she would have buck up to impress her new team mates and in turn save herself for the claws of killer subjects like SM. As i said, she is not without capabilities, its just her attitude of not wanting to work to her best.

Lastly, a thought on the helping hand. what is actually helping this people. Is it helping them to cover what they should be doing and allowing them to go out to play gai gai? I know some groups have done that but i see the permanent damage they have done. I think the difference between this method and mine can be described as follows. I push my team members down to the pool and they got to swim but if i see they cannot float, i will push them up a while and tell them how to float then send them back into the water. Eventually they will float, its just a matter of how good or bad, subjected to individual capability (the nurturing has been done but subjected to the nature of the ability). The other method looks more to me like always giving the person a float, he or she knows the instructor is there to back them up hence it breeds complacency, laziness and eventually they learn nothing at all. If you take the instructor away, they are just a bunch of helpless people struggling to keep their head afloat but eventually many will die. In the midst of that, they may also out of panic in keeping them heads afloat try to climb and push people down to stay afloat and innocent people will be push down by them.

Although no method is perfect and this is a subjective topic, i think the results will be known probably some time later and we will see where everyone is standing.