Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Imagine that you are in a school or workplace. Suddenly, a fight takes place and someone goes to break it up. Then what? Where would the people who participated in the fight go?  Your immediate thought may be that they would be brought to talk to a person in a high position of authority. Afterward, a meeting with the teachers or other workers would happen. During these meetings, usually what occurs is a discussion of what happened, the consequences, and what to do to prevent it. People would run to a meeting in hopes to resolve what has happened. This shows that humans think the best way to solve conflict is in groups because a voice and opinion from everyone could be shared and contrasted.

The book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding is about a group of boys who survived a plane crash and landed on an island. Two boys named Sam and Eric discovered a dead corpse which they described to be a beast. They ran to tell the chief, Ralph, about what they saw. Their distress resulted in a meeting called by Ralph. “They (Sam and Eric) became motionless, gripped in each other’s arms. ‘We saw the beast.’ Ralph peered cautiously around him. ‘Call them to an assembly,’ said Ralph” (98-99). This portrays that immediately after Sam and Eric told Ralph about the problem that they encountered, Ralph wanted to gather the group to make everyone aware of what was happening. So, do meetings always resolve problems? Meetings can sometimes lead to solutions, but in other cases, it just ends up right back to where it started. Whether or not it is solved, having a meeting always makes people aware and feel supported. So, from that quote, I could tell that even though they’re not completely sure what to do, what’s important for them to tell everyone.

Since harsh situations are inevitable to avoid, President Obama would too, have to find a way to discuss things. Although, bad situations do not only have to be ones caused by people, they can to be ones that are caused by nature. For example, when Hurricane Sandy came and destroyed many homes, something had to be done. Where will these families live? Who will pay for the damage? Many more questions will spiral back to back after those. With a need of ideas, President Obama would have to gather a group of people to a meeting in order to discuss what the best thing to do would be. In an article from the White House, it stated, “President Obama and his cabinet discuss ongoing response and recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy and making sure that taxes don’t go up on middle-class families.” Even though the situation is very large and difficult to resolve, just hearing about what everyone’s opinion about the situation is would serve as a sense of support, being the best way to counter the situation.

Similar to the situation of gathering a group of people, in the beginning of the book, the boys wanted to choose a leader of their group. ”’We’re having a meeting. Come and join in. Let’s have a vote. Vote for the chief’ said Ralph” (20-22). From that, we could see that just because someone thought that there should be a leader, one wasn’t randomly chosen by one person. Instead, Ralph called a group meeting to discuss and choose who would be the best fit. So, many situations require a meeting to happen, especially ones where a choice would have to be made. This could connect to the situation with Obama and his cabinet discussing what to do after Hurricane Sandy because they were in a troubling situation. This scene in the book is similar because everyone shares the same confusion of the question, who should be the leader? The question would have to be answered by gathering everyone and asking for their opinions to finally make that choice.

Even if there is not a conflict, the purpose of a meeting is to also give support. To pinpoint onto one situation, there is a whole website created by teachers who are trying to share a good classroom practice. They would call it a classroom circle where all of the students would sit and have a conversation. Even though there was no problem, having this would decrease the chance of one happening. According to the website, having daily classroom meetings would “promote community, acceptance, and belonging in a safe environment the works at strengthening relationships and repairing them”. What the teacher is saying is that this would make everyone feel more comfortable and more open to talking to one another. So, from that I could imply that they think the best way to resolve and prevent problems are to speak in a group to hear everyone’s opinion.

   In conclusion, meetings are one of the main automatic responses when it comes to learning what others’ are thinking, discussing a bad situation, finding out what to do next, spreading information, or just to check up on one another. There are many different variations of meetings and it one can take place almost everywhere. Since meetings keep occurring, doesn’t it meant that it is doing something right? The fact that so many people would rely on a group discussion and think of it as a solution, shows that it is seen as one of the best conflict resolving techniques. Just to get a sense of what everyone else is thinking leads up to new ideas.

Works Cited:

• Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.

• Slack, Megan. "President Obama Holds a Cabinet Meeting." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, 28 Apr. 2012. Web.

          https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/11/28/president-obama-holds-cabinet-meeting

• Lister, Christopher, and Suzanne Bartel. "Philosophy Of Restorative Practices." Restorative Classroom Practices - Philosophy Of Restorative Practices. N.p., 4 Dec. 2011. Web.    

          https://restorativeclassroomcircles.wikispaces.com/home