Divide Your Group

Martha McCormick on August 9, 2009

As I facilitate experiential education or group discussions, I like to divide any group that is larger than seven people into smaller groups. This makes it easier for quieter people to be heard. If I’m with a group for more than an hour or so, I mix the groups up so everyone gets to know each other better. I’ve experimented with some different ways to divide large groups lately; here are some of the methods I use.

At customer service training I am doing for the Iowa Community Action Association, I’ve been using the Chinese Zodiac. I made up nametags with the pictures of the twelve Zodiac animals–

Brody Girls at HerStory 2007

Brody Girls at HerStory 2007

  • Rat
  • Ox
  • Tiger
  • Rabbit
  • Dragon
  • Snake
  • Horse
  • Lamb
  • Monkey
  • Rooster
  • Dog
  • Pig

Then I made pages with the corresponding pictures, descriptions and years of birth for each sign. I put these on the tables, automatically dividing the group as they arrive. I have small groups form by combining different signs. Here is a Web site that tells you which signs go together best; you could base another grouping on those recommendations.

Here are some other quick ideas for forming small groups randomly–

  • Have the girls line up by one of these methods; then divide the line into the size or number of groups you want– (Shoe size, Height, Birthday)
  • Divide by eye color, kinds of shoes or shirt color
  • Divide by month of birth or season of birth–
    (Winter = December, January, February, Spring = March, April, May, Summer = June, July, August, Fall = September, October, November)
  • Play the game Mingle Mingle, ending with the number you want in your small groups.

Michelle Cummings of Training Wheels has published a book–Playing With a Full Deck–that has lots of ideas for activities for groups that only use card games. Download Dividing a Group for a taste.

Mingle Mingle!

Martha McCormick on August 9, 2009

This is a really fun way to mix a group up and then divide up cliques without anyone being the wiser. Here’s a video that is worth 10,000 words of explanation for a game I’ve used for years.

Celebrate Justice!

Martha McCormick on August 8, 2009

“I do believe there are gender and ethnic stereotypes that propel people to assumptions about what they expected me to be,” these words from Sonia Sotomayor, our newest Supreme Court Justice, encapsulate the reasons for Chrysalis After-School. Girls need to overcome those assumptions and women need to challenge them!

So many articles have been written about how she has overcome her origins. But I wonder if those origins have actually helped her become the person she is.Certainly the injections required to survive juvenile diabetes taught her discipline. Her childhood in a Bronx home raised by her widowed Latina mother, taught her independence and gave her strength.

The Perry Mason television show inspired her to become a judge; she realized the judge was the most important person in the courtroom. That’s what she wanted to be. Patience and determination to survive law school, the prosecutor’s office and the federal approval process are certainly traits that any woman must learn to break the invisible barriers to achievement that still exist.