TeacherServer.com
Home | How It Works | Stats
Login | Register
     
  Case: Cannot Cooperate
Aisha is known as a responsible and smart student. I have known her for the last two years, but this year is the first time she is taking one of my classes. She is in my 10th grade US History class. Recently, I started using small group projects in my class. I simply want my students to learn to cooperate, exchange ideas, and produce the project together. Although Aisha is willing to take part in these small group projects, she does not want to be in groups with male students because of her religious beliefs. When she told me about this, I told her that she was in the United States and that she had to work with whoever she is in a group with. In the first group project, Aisha was in a group with three males and one female students. She simply did not participate in any of the group activities. I wonder if should reconsider my original position on this issue and accommodate Aisha by having her work only with girls. Would I be doing her a disservice? What should I do?
Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!)
I think that first I would do a little investigation, for lack of a better word, about her religion and see if this was actually as big of an issue as she was making it. If you have a class with very few females I could see where the problem would come in when trying to form groups but if your class is fairly evenly split and her religion really does prohibit her from working with males then I would just try to be sensitive and put her in an all-girl group. I do personally think that it is doing her a disservice by isolating her from having to work with male team mates because in the career world this is not likely going to really happen but in the long run everyone has their own opinion and religions and if that's what her religion requires then I think you should try to be sensitive to her needs.