Developing Group Goals
Group unity is never fully achieved without the driving force of goals. One thing that makes teams different from groups is shared purpose—common goals and agreement by all in the group on a common path to reach those goals. Everybody wins or everybody loses. This builds community.
Short team building activities typically have creating a team environment as the solitary goal. These activities have value and should be done periodically. On the other hand, whole-class team building, led by the teacher, transforms class goals into the group’s mission. The teacher casts a vision or goal of their purpose, and as a class they work together on the mission’s possibilities. All students feel valued and know they will be treated with dignity by the teacher and other students.
Working together toward common goals is a form of connectedness that unifies students. More challenging goals and long-term goals, decided by the group, bring about stronger connectedness.
Creating goals for the class can take many forms. Chick Moorman, author of Our Classroom: We Can Learn Together, cites many examples of potential goals:
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Doing a class project of helping tutor younger students.
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Adopting a grandparent.
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Cleaning up the school grounds.
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Creating a welcome wagon to assist new students.
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Bringing meals to a senior citizen.
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Doing something special for someone at school (custodian, cafeteria cooks, administrative assistants).
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Planning and raising money for a trip somewhere.
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Putting out the challenge of seeing how many days in a row the lunchroom supervisor will rate the class as “Best in the Lunchroom.”
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Being the first class to return all the fund-raising money.
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Challenging the class members to be able to recite something long or complicated from memory by a certain date.
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Doing something crazy, unusual, or dramatic that will stand out long enough to be remembered for 10 or 20 years.
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Creating a group project together.