Chris' response to Noah's question

Let the wisdom of the class work it out—keeping in mind, you must be a VERY strong leader guiding the conversation, setting a couple ground rules and not letting it go (the conversation) too long. Use it as “an experiment in democracy—we’ll try this for this one time –and since the solution comes from the kids, it will have given the democratic process credence. But, if you let them divide, that is a missed opportunity to “put everyone in the same boat”. See the Dreikurs chapter on this in Children the Challenge. Do you have that book yet? Get it!!! Great reference as we discuss issues like this all year.

Group Skills

I put the kids in groups for their CLP and there was really only one conflict that arose. There are two girls who may have difficulty working together in the same group. I spoke with one of them privately who claims that the other student does not respect her and she is not the type of person who forgives people who don't respect her. I listened to her vent and I said that this issue might really be a class issue - we all need to be able to work with everyone in the class for GL to be successful. Does anyone have any suggestions how to work with these 2 girls, both of whom have very strong personalities? I don't plan to switch the groups around at this point because that defeats the spirit of GL. Tomorrow is a work day and I want them to be productive.

I want to figure out how to deal with this in the "GL way." My first thought is to just remind the class that it's a group grade for this project and hope that they'll make it work so that their other 3 group members are not at a disadvantage.

Thanks.