Ten Days, Four Students, One Group Mark
Four Class 9 students, Sana, Imran, Priya and Ved, have 10 days to submit a group project on 'Disaster Management' worth 20 marks. Their teacher will give one grade to the whole group. Sana has already made the outline and done six of the ten pages. Imran called two meetings, but Priya missed both because of dance practice and Ved said nothing in either. Yesterday Imran announced he would 'do the rest himself' because 'nobody else cares'. Sana is hurt but agrees, because she wants full marks. Priya has just sent a message asking what her part is. Ved has not replied to anyone. A friend from another section offers the group last year's project file, saying 'just change the names'. The submission is in four days and the group has not divided any remaining work.
1. Diagnose what is going wrong in the group using life skills, and explain which skill is most urgently missing.
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Three things are happening. First, roles were never agreed: Sana did the outline and six pages, Imran called meetings, Priya and Ved had no stated task, so withdrawal looks like indifference when it may be confusion. Second, communication is indirect: Priya's message and Ved's silence are being read as 'not caring', and Imran's announcement is a decision made for others. Third, the group is avoiding a hard conversation by letting one person rescue the task.
The most urgently missing skill is assertive communication combined with empathy, the ability to state a need clearly without blaming. For example: 'We have four days and six pages left. I need each person to own one section by tomorrow, and I need to know now if that is impossible.' Critical thinking is also needed to reject the borrowed file. Decision-making without a timeline is what produced the crisis, so the group should convert the remaining work into named tasks with dates.
2. Propose a fair plan for the four days, and explain how the group should respond to the offer of last year's project file.
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Call a 20-minute meeting today. List what remains, such as four pages, diagrams, bibliography and review, and assign one owner per item with a deadline. Priya takes a section she can complete around dance practice, Ved takes the bibliography and one diagram, Sana edits, and Imran prepares the final layout. Set a rule that no one edits another's section without asking, and keep a buffer day for review.
The borrowed file should be refused clearly: 'We could get caught, and even if we did not, we would not learn the part we are being graded on.' Copying also creates an unfair advantage over groups that do the work, so it is an ethical issue, not only a risk issue. If the group is genuinely short of time, the honest move is to ask the teacher for an extension or to narrow the scope, not to submit someone else's work. Put the refusal in the group chat so everyone sees the same decision.
3. Sana is hurt by Imran's takeover but also relieved. What should she say to him, and what should she avoid?
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She should separate the useful part of Imran's action from the harmful part. Useful: he is worried about the deadline and is willing to work. Harmful: he decided for the group and implied others do not care. A workable script is: 'I am glad you want this finished, and I am not comfortable with you taking over the whole thing. It makes Priya and Ved unnecessary and leaves me doing nothing. Can we split the last four pages tonight and review together tomorrow?'
She should avoid two traps: sarcasm ('fine, you do everything') and silent resentment, which will reappear in the peer assessment. She should also avoid defending her six pages as a scoreboard, because contribution is not the same as ownership. If Imran refuses, she should state the consequence, that she will ask the teacher to clarify how group marks are awarded, rather than escalate in the class group. The aim is to restore shared responsibility, not to put Imran in his place.