Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Gender issues cropping up

My DD10 is in a 5/6 GT classroom. DD is not one to embellish (unlike her younger sister) so I would guess that her accounts are fairly close to the truth. DD also fully acknowledges that she has perfectionism issues that make it difficult to work in groups. Over the past few weeks, I have been hearing comments from her that bother me. In some group interactions with male students, she feels that she is being pressured to take an unfair share of the work or is being excluded.

In her math group last week, she was grouped with two boys (one of them is at her level in math, not sure about the other). They sat there talking and goofing off while she did the work. When she refused to share her work, they told her that she was a bad partner. I asked how she handled it. She said that she gave in and told them how to tackle the problem because she needed them to proceed with the next phase of the assignment. She claimed that she made a decision not to fight them. She had basketball practice that night and didn't want the unfinished work as homework. She was angry because, in her words, "They just expected me to do the thinking for them."

In another situation, she had a group assignment on an ancient civilization. Her teacher told them that they would be graded separately on their slides but as a group on the presentation. They used google docs and DD would show me day after day that the one male in her group wasn't working on it. The only thing he did was change the background on a daily basis. This caused my DD a lot of stress as the presentation date got closer. The night before the presentation, the male partner threw together some sloppy work. DD worried the group presentation would suffer because of him. DD and her other female partner took over all of the work except the few slides specifically assigned to the male partner.

Finally, DD and her friend E got grouped with some boys from another class for a social studies project. The boys absolutely refused to talk to them and include them in their work. When I asked DD how she handled this one, she said that she just worked separately with E and ignored the boys. She said that it just wasn't worth the fight. I could tell that she was frustrated and hurt.

DD told me the other day that she wished she never had to have male partners. DD dismisses my suggestions as too confrontational, i.e. In the math situation, "Did you tell them that they were bad partners because they weren't doing any work?" She is uncomfortable talking to the male students. I've asked DD whether she has brought any of these situations to teacher and DD says, "No." When I have asked her why not, she gives me wishy-washy answers. I'm getting the impression that she is worried about being unpopular with the boys so she doesn't want to say anything. It's starting to drive me crazy that she is not advocating for herself. Any suggestions?

I'm not sure that's a boy-girl thing. I've had group projects in college where similar things happened, and it was just easier to do the work than to argue with the other people. (The one time I didn't, one member of my 3-member team dropped the class, and the other switched to pass/fail, the night before the project was due.) About an even mix of boys and girls.

I never came up with a good solution for the artificial situations you're forced into by teachers. You can do more than your share of the work, you can be happy with a bad grade, or you can luck out and get good teammates.

Girls do tend to be socialized more toward the "do more than your share" than the "be happy with a bad grade," though.

I really enjoyed reading 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch. One of my favorite parts is where he actually breaks down the skills needed to work well on group projects, and explisitly explains how he teaches - and provides feedback - on these important life skill. Knute, if you haven't read this book, it's worth getting a hold of and doing a quick read. It won't answer your problem, but might give you a larger perspective on it.

As far as 'How do I parent my child so she'll be less like she is and more like I want her to be?' I can strongly recommend:
Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook: An Interactive Guide to The Nurtured Heart Approach [Perfect Paperback]
Lisa Bravo and Howard Glass.

This book is so poorly named, and yet it is full of great suggestions as to how to change someone. Before I read this book I wasn't even really sure that my job was to change my kid! Do I think that by calling attention to what your daughter is doing right you can 'make' her more the way you think she should be? I sure do!

I would get out my magnifing glass and look for (or create) instances when your daughter is being appropriatly assertive and praise, praise, praise. It isn't fast, but it works.

Love and MOre Love,
Grinity

@AlexsMom, I do think that there is a boy-girl component because she doesn't seem to be having the same issues on a massive group project where she happened to get in a group of four girls. They have negotiated through some tough differences and seem to have a good group dynamic. Maybe they all have a similar work ethic and it's just a coincidence that they are all girls?

@Grinity, thanks for pointing out that I am asking for her to be "less like she is and more like I want her to be?" I have to look at that and also will look at the book. I have viewed "The Last Lecture" but don't recall much about the skills for working well in a group. I guess that I should revisit that as well.

@Dottie, duly noted that there are disruptive girls and teacher pleasing boys. I guess that this is, in part, a rant on the group project. I know that she needs to work through some of these dynamics. She just seems to be having more problems with the boys right now. It also may be a function of the fact that she knows the girls better and may be more willing to speak her mind. I like the idea of trying to make the groups more self-selective. Right now she is subject to the dreaded "random group generator." Maybe DD would be willing to ask the teacher if they could occasionally pick their own groups for math. It's worth a try.

Group work just came up in our house yesterday. Dd (5th grade) was in tears over having to work in teams (of 2) on math. A bit of background - her school does subject acceleration through in-class differentiation. As a result of our successful advocacy (thanks to the great advice here!), most of her math time is spent with her primary math group consisting of two people, her and her twin brother. Other times they do combined activities with the next math group.

Result: Situation 1: she spends entire math time arguing with her assigned partner (her brother) over how to set up the assigned "scenario" that provides the basis for a data analysis activity. Situation 2: she spends entire math time teaching her assigned math partner (not her brother but less knowledgeable on the topic than her brother). She is now frustrated and wants to work on her own so she can focus on learning math. We advised her to talk to her teachers about it.

Dh and I are both scientists and discussed this kind of group work last night, and neither of us get the need for so much of it. We agreed that in the work we do as professionals in teams (something we both do), *coordination* is needed, but each team member spends most of their effort working independently. We both feel classroom "team" activities are overrated/overused. Perhaps we're too "old school" to understand.

In the book 'The last lecture' Randy goes into more detail than in the lecture itself. I listened to an audio of it which was really good.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

If you go to this link (Google Books copy of The Last Lecture), it should take you to page 143 or so. Scroll back to page 142, which is the chapter on working in groups.

(I notice that all of his suggestions assume a degree of autonomy not available to most schoolkids!)

What is WITH all these teachers assigning group work? Making a kid's grade dependent on someone else's performance is unconscionable. And the argument that learning to work in groups is an important life skill is completely bogus, unless the teachers are actively teaching group-work skills. Which they are not.

I find this extremely aggravating because I have many colleagues in my department who piously believe that they are better teachers than those of who don't assign group projects. They cite statistics that what employers complain about most is lack of social skills in their employees. Okay, so, let's address that specifically. If it's part of their job at whatever level (university, elementary, whatever) to teach social skills, then they need to DO THAT. Not one of these colleagues actually teaches group work skills. They just assign group work. And then the student's grade in A SCIENCE CLASS is dependent on, not their science knowledge and abilities, not even their own social skills, but their PARTNERS' social skills!!!

Sorry, can you tell I have strong feelings about this?

MegMeg,
I couldn't agree more. You know, the teacher's wouldn't think of throwing a bunch of workbooks at 6th grade students and saying 'Here, Learn some Math!' There is something about interpersonal skills that folks 'just believe' that all kids need is practice and they'll get it. Of course hand in hand with that seems to be a total comfort with what every social behavior arises when young kids are thrown together on a group project.

Just like teachers now expect children to be unable to think abstractly until middle school, but expect every kid in the room to 'know where the line is' and be able to read by the teacher's expression when they have crossed it.

The chapter on group work stood out in my mind so clearly because it was such a rarity for anyone to be thinking about setting up educational experiences that involved group work. I would expect that what works for graduate students to be diffferent from what works for elementary age, but I sure can't refer you to any resources on this area at all!

MegMeg, if you ever find (or create) this information, please share it with us. I have a few ideas of what might work, but no place to try them out!

Ideas:
1) Teach the history of humans working in groups so that the children have several role models of workable arrangements throughout history.
2) Teach how to give specific compliments - "Transforming the Difficult Child" Howard Glasser style.
3) Have the kids do group projects that themselves teach others how to do group projects
4) Explisitly teach go to get 'settled and focused' and have the kids practice that before they start. Slow deep rhythmic breathing might be one technique, posture, singing, streching, praying come to mind.
5) create a mechanism for handling conflict in emotionally safe ways.
6) assign kids to the role of peer coach to help each other think about how to solve the issues that always arise.

Wow - no wonder 6th graders can do this - it's hard!
Love and More Love
Grinity