We live in a world ruled by humans, and yet human nature remains in constant conflict. People are always fighting inner conflicts within themselves or with the people around them. Challenging their inner demons or fighting with another human seems like a never-ending battle. It may be due to differences in opinions, it may be a clash between personalities, and so on. However these pile up leading to the larger ones in the grand scheme of things such as the political disputes across the nations.
I myself have been through a series of events where I have had to go through a prolonged period of conflict with myself and others. Now that I am a freshly turned adult and almost at the end of my highschool journey, I can reflect back on some things which have shaped me into the person that I am today.
During my early days of school, there was a new method of enhancing the students’ presentation skills and team work. The process was named as “PBL” which referred to project-based learning, where we were assigned a particular project for each subject and were segregated into teams, having one team leader each. The first project we received was for English and we were given a story to cover. There were five members and we had one leader of the group, who we will refer to as Rahman.
Rahman was regarded as one of the best students of our class, but some people called him arrogant due to his overachieving attitude. Nonetheless, it was my first time doing a project with him or even interacting with him firsthand.
The third day of the project, we all gathered around the table with books, copies, and laptops all scattered around in the school library, and we began discussing what each of us had done. One of the members of the team, Amrin (pseudonym), was discussing her part and said she hadn’t understood the other half of her literary analysis even though she did the first part perfectly.
Rahman took her paper and as he read it, he tore it into bits and pieces and everyone remained bewildered. Rahman shouted at Amrin saying, “Do you even know how important this project is to us to get a good grade? What is this piece of garbage going to get us? God, why did I even take you on my team!” Thus demonstrating his bossy and condescending attitude towards the other students due to his superiority complex. Tears trickled down Amrin eyes as she had put a lot of hard work into her part of the project and all she had done was ask a simple question only to get it torn into pieces.
I decided to stand up for Amrin because I felt like it was outrageous as everyone remained quite stunned by the incident that had just taken place. I told Rahman that it was wrong of him to insult Amrin like that in front of everyone and that it was his responsibility to help the team members out if they struggled, rather than getting agitated about it. Rahman immediately started shouting at me and said that I was off the project and that anyone who spoke against him was quite essentially out of the team as well and that he only cared about achieving the good grades and not our tantrums.
Conflicts are bound to exist when different opinions and personalities exist, but the biggest challenge is to find how to make the best out of it and not get consumed by it
We got into a heated argument, but I soon realized that it was pointless to get involved in this conflict because he would never listen to me and only do what he pleased. The next day I decided to gather up all the team members and talk to them about how we all should collectively speak up and try to resolve this issue with Rahman because many against one would definitely hold more power and there might be a chance to make this project a success and get all of us our desired grades, while also making Rahman understand the very fine line between a leader and a boss. The team members nodded, and as soon as one of the members said she agreed, then the rest of the members said yes too.
We went to the library where Rahman was seated and we said we wanted to have a conversation with him. He said he didn’t have time for it at first, but then I urged him for once and he agreed. We sat there and told him that this conflict shall be resolved for all of our sakes and our academic prosperity. I told Rahman upfront that his attitude towards the members and other students was wrong. All the other members said the same and spoke to him about their hard work and explained everything they had done as he quietly listened. “We all know that you mean well Rahman, but we have to make our voices heard too,” they said.
Alas, Rahman hesistantly said, “I am sorry for behaving the way that I did, let’s start working.” And we all began to work. The next day our presentation went exactly the way we wanted it to go and it was a success. Rahman understood what being a true leader was like and started being a good listener as well since everyone told him how they felt about his condescending attitude and moving forward, he became kinder.
This experience taught me that standing up for yourself and others is vital, because if we don’t stand up for ourselves, no one will. Conflicts are bound to exist when different opinions and personalities exist, but the biggest challenge is to find how to make the best out of it and not get consumed by it. Once you do, it is indeed possible to overcome the challenge with grace.
Arita Haque is a student at Oxford International School, Dhaka.