What I'm saying is that all tasks and rewards defined in school and academia are based on the individual and that there is no concept of anything other than the individual in the context of learning and intellectual growth. J.
Rubbish.
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A general ramble...down weirdness lane. This isn't a the right minded controversy, because it depends on what field and what time and place.
Now, now Jordan. I think we non-science majors needed to take those 5 unit science series with lecture and labs. In the labs it was standard practice to pair up for the experiments and then write up the results where you were supposed to compare notes---its part of the verification system. My son took a lot of these and hung out with CS crew where they had open collaborative labs (high unix era of the early 90s). I dutifully stayed away from anything with 5 units because that usually meant, the class would be your life. Three lectures and two, two or three hour labs each week. That's a huge amount of work.
What used to piss me off was I had the same schedule for art, where the art history, modern lectures, some GE requirement and seminars were one hour three days a week and two hour studio twice a week for drawing, painting, and some elective like printmaking, sculpture.... Same amount of work, almost the same units, zero prestiage---pretty much the laughing stock of `serious' academia. I used go around grumbling, okay assholes, you take a drawing class four hours a week. You stand up with your work, without crying or whining, and take your weekly crit. You can't hide your own incompetence. It's a humiliating picture into your sorry ass empty soul.
I don't even want to think what dance, theater, and music majors go through---all of which are collaborative. You should get 10 units a year extra just for taking shit. Try Ionesco's The Lesson...
It was really dependent on the particular major and particular era. Art, English, Math were particularly bad about this star system or individual achievement. But things like CS, some branches of Physics, Chemistry, Bio-Sci were much more team oriented because most of the research is done as teams under the pretense of a master PI.
I don't know what to say about English and Art. They suffer the original author, original painter syndrome. The whole canon is full of special geniuses.
CG