ABSTRACT
This chapter describes what it means to expect kids to learn from one another, and how they actually do. Rarely in schools do adults talk to children about how a group can function together, or what it means to have complex feelings about difference and collaborative process. The focus tends to be on establishing roles for children in groups toward completing a task, and in quickly smoothing over conflict in the name of productivity. The vignette that follows offers one example of how children might make use of group work that happens without adult oversight. The frame for group work is different depending on whether the group is built according to its members’ will, or whether it is built from outside, without an assumption that consent should play a part. An idealized frame for group work includes the idea that the group will encounter conflicts rarely, and will learn something tangible and tidy from resolving them.
