{"id":198,"date":"2026-01-14T10:07:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/?p=198"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:07:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:07:53","slug":"in-school-it-was-cheating-are-you-doing-it-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"In school, It was cheating.Are you doing it now?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Jason Jobe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can you achieve more, perform better, and enjoy the experience?
Master the Craft of Collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Anna Samoylova<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In school, helping each other was often considered cheating. You were required and limited to doing your own work, alone. In the \u201creal world,\u201d working together is not only necessary but with the right people, it can be a more enjoyable, fulfilling, and productive way to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By definition, collaboration is a creative, social activity. It is the action of working with others to produce or create something, to achieve a common goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborations can include peers and\/or those above or below you in skill and expertise, and vary in size, from partnerships, to teams, to companies, to communities, to nations. They can also vary in scope, from short, simple tasks, to growing a company, to a community\u2019s generational journey, and take many forms, such as mentoring, tutoring, coaching, learning, and even play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like all relationships, developing and maintaining a collaboration requires effort but it will be rewarding. Acting together, we can be more effective and more productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply, collaboration is vital to both your personal and professional success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is, itself, a valuable skill that you can learn and improve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNatural Genius\u201d is a myth.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In his excellent article, \u201dWhy we stopped making Einsteins<\/a>,\u201d Eric Hoel points out that despite the abundance of educational content available online, there is a surprising scarcity \u2014 statistically speaking \u2014 of modern-day \u201cgeniuses\u2019\u2019 comparable to the likes of Plato, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genius is not born but nurtured and taught. Hoel contends that many, if not most historical and current day \u201cgeniuses,\u201d had the benefit of personal, private tutors in their early education. He cites that the average tutored student does 98% better than non-tutored ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says, (with my emphasis):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026what\u2019s necessary for genius historically is early engagement<\/em> with, not access to, intellectual subjects. And, for humans, engagement is a social phenomenon<\/em>; particularly for children, this requires interactions with adults who can not just give them individual attention, but also model for them what serious intellectual engagement looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So access to knowledge alone, while empowering and educational, is somehow not fully sufficient in inspiring deep and intensive learning of intellectual and artistic pursuits. Otherwise, the internet would have spawned millions of \u201cgeniuses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The catalyst that transforms knowledge into mastery is collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration with the right person isn\u2019t just an additive boost, it\u2019s a performance multiplier. And honestly, isn\u2019t it much more enjoyable when you have a friend who enjoys something as much as you do? And this \u201cjoy\u201d and engagement has a very real, positive impact on your ability, focus, learning, and overall performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of a good mentor or coach isn\u2019t limited to beginners either. Atul Gawande, the author of \u201cBetter\u201d and \u201cThe Checklist Manifesto,\u201d himself an esteemed surgeon, at the top of his career, hired a coach to give him feedback on his surgical techniques. While his coach was a peer in terms of expertise, his real value came from having, literally, a different perspective in the operating room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his New Yorker article, \u201cPersonal Best<\/a>,\u201dspeaking of the advice he received, states,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThat one twenty-minute discussion gave me more to consider and work on
than I\u2019d had in the past five years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Peers and Colleagues \u2014 Working together works!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It can be great to have (or be) a mentor but don\u2019t underestimate the value of a peer or colleague. Even if you are both beginners, your shared interest and engagement is not only a boost to your morale but it brings very real and significant value to your performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same article<\/a>, Gawande cites a five-year study of new skill acquisition in teacher workshops. Normal acquisition rates were under 20% but when coaching was introduced, acquisition rates jumped to over 90%. Simply having a colleague observe and comment as they tried out the new skills in their own classroom made a huge difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Prior Experience Required<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On January 26th, 1999, a computer was placed in a \u201chole in the wall\u201d facing out into an Indian slum at Kalkaji, Delhi where anyone was allowed to freely use it. The results were astonishing. Children came running out of the slum and glued themselves to the computer. Within hours they were surfing the web. With no instructions, with no prior knowledge, they learned quickly to use the computer and internet on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image from \u201cThe Hole-in-the-Wall Project<\/a>\u201d by Chris Unitt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sugata Mitra<\/a> won a $1,000,000 TED award for this ground-breaking work with his Hole-in-The-Wall Education Project (HiWEP<\/a>). A key, and instructive, observation from this experiment was something unimaginable: these children naturally and excitedly collaborated in their exploration, discovery, and learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This prompted Dr. Mitra in his paper \u201cMinimally Invasive Education for mass computer literacy<\/a>\u201d presented at CRIDALA 2000to propose the following hypothesis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of children can be achieved through incidental learning provided the learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with entertaining and motivating content and some minimal (human) guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Mitra has continued his work, creating StartSOLE<\/a> (Start Self-Organized Learning Environments) and, most recently, he has been named the 2022 Brock Prize in Education Innovation Laureate for his transformational work in rethinking the way children learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this is to say that one\u2019s social environment is a critical element in one\u2019s real, measurable, performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay. Where do I start?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A good collaboration begins with the \u201cright\u201d people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t expect others to be what you are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One place to begin is to reflect on your own skill and personality traits. Consider taking a personality assessment \u2014 16Personalities.com<\/a> and PrinciplesYou.com<\/a> are both free and quite comprehensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember, while \u201call models are wrong, some can be useful.<\/a>\u201d These assessments generalize but they can give you a vocabulary, perspective, and insight into understanding yourself and others. Having a common conceptual scaffolding improves communication and mutual understanding. They don\u2019t have to be perfect to be useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what particular characteristics of the collaborator are most valued?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it their expertise, their presentation skills, their enthusiasm, their engagement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re looking for someone who is also interested in becoming a better collaborator. If you need to convince them to be your partner, they aren\u2019t likely to be the motivational force you are looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we know little about the particulars and talents of those historical tutors, we do have evidence that suggests that engagement itself is highly valuable. One might surmise that it is one\u2019s enthusiasm and ability to communicate, not the knowledge itself that is of greater import.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So give it some thought and talk with some of your friends or colleagues who you think might share your interest in collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you find someone who is game, pick a project (see below for a few ideas) and get started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your First Collaboration<\/p>\n\n\n\n