Cooperativity

By MAYA BOKHARI ‘21

How often have your advisor, your teachers, your parents, and sometimes even your friends told you to meet with your teacher about an essay or a test? I know I have heard this suggestion time and time again over my six years at Milton. This year, my junior year, I finally heard a new recommendation: peer study groups. While I am sure we have all heard about and hopefully experienced the benefits of meeting with our teachers, the majority of our community often overlooks the value in cooperating with someone who is struggling with the same concept.

During one of those first few classes of the year, my biology teacher told our whole class that our individual success would be based entirely off of our ability to cooperate with, learn from, and help out each other. She suggested we form a study group. Believe it or not, we had our first study session three weeks prior to our first test. Six people from our class of ten showed up to that first meeting. The next week, nine people came. Finally, our last session before the test included our entire class. In those three sessions leading up to the test, I learned a lot more than just what was necessary for the test.

During our first meeting, I realized how much less intimidating the study group was in comparison to the classroom when others had the same questions I did – questions we all were too embarrassed to ask in class for fear of looking “dumb”. Milton has an undeniably intimidating atmosphere, such that when you look around you realize how smart and accomplished your peers are, but we all experience the same pressures to limit vulnerability when it might affect a grade. This study group gave me the confidence to find comfort in asking those supposedly “dumb questions” not only in our supportive group but also in the classroom.

We spent our second meeting crafting an extensive class-wide study guide. In compiling our notes, selecting the most important points, and cross-checking each other’s contributions, our class bonded over this common goal of maximizing our collective success. I was surprised how quickly we as a group overcame the inevitably competitive nature of challenging classes that might have hindered our ability to work well together. We all saw the direct correlation between collective success and individual success. Our sixteen page collaborative study guide may not have been the most concise study tool, but it served as tangible evidence of our study group’s productivity and resulting camaraderie.

In our last session before the test, our group no longer felt scheduled, forced, or restrictive. I cannot exactly speak for my classmates, but I really enjoyed studying for that test. Even though we have just barely begun the second interim, I think this biology class will end up high on my list of memorable Milton experiences. But while the subject matter is fascinating and the lab work is mind-boggling, learning from and working with my classmates both during and after class hold responsibility for my positive perspective.

I do not, by any stretch, mean to say that meeting with my teacher has not been helpful because those meetings have been and continue to be extraordinarily beneficial. However, I do believe that if I had had study groups similar to this one in the past, I would have reflected on those classes more positively. Who knows, I may have even had greater success in those classes if I had coupled teacher meetings with peer study groups. Metaphorically speaking of course, success from our study group mirrors the cooperative binding of oxygen to hemoglobin. When oxygen binds to hemoglobin, the presence of the oxygen helps the hemoglobin hold its shape to give more oxygen easier access to the binding sites. I would say that, just like the oxygen and the hemoglobin, our individual affinity for success is directly affected by others’ affinities for success.