The
Farmer's Insurance Group
Book: LesBrown,
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(pages 75-88) To help students develop the tools to become independent and responsible for their choices and to start to make choices which will help them fulfill their dreams. Introduction:
The natural
progression is: Main Question: How do you know when you are free? Pre-Reading activity: Students write their own definitions of freedom and discuss. Next, have students find examples of people who have fought for or who are fighting for freedom. What freedoms are they fighting for? What is the difference between "Freedom" and "freedoms?" Show, if available, the video: "The American Promise" acts 1-5, a couple of segments at a time during this chapter. (pages 76-81 discussion of goals) At this point it is helpful to take another look at the "Personal Inventory" and the "Needs Worksheet" since needs and wants are a big part of setting goals. Have them write down their goals and then prioritize and rank them from most important to least important. They can further categorize them into short-term and long term goals. Have them identify which goals are tools and which goals relate to some overall purpose in their lives. Think about the consequences of choices on self and others: (Resource: Vernon pages 41-44 or design your own scenarios of choices and consequences) Goal Action Plan: Students create a goal action plan and find an adult mentor to help reach the goals. Adult mentor should sign the action plan and student should have mentor check and sign plan as it is accomplished. The key here is defining goals and taking steps to achieve them. (You may refer to the activities beginning on page 248 in Les Brown's book to help you create an action plan format suitable to your students' needs.) (pages 81-83 things that limit freedom) Next, using the "Think, Ink and Pop-up" technique, have them identify some forces which are preventing them from making free choices. These could be internal forces like attitudes, habits, fears, or programming or they could be external forces like other people's opinions, styles, social attitudes or pressures, and so forth. (pages 84-88 leadership) Concept: We become more of a leader in our relationships when we first learn to lead ourself. Activity: Leadership "Dream Box." Each student takes a small box with no top and turns it upside down so that the bottom is up. On each of the five faces of the box will be placed pictures or words which represent the student's dreams of things to accomplish for him or herself (the top face), and on the other four sides his or her dreams for family, community, nation, and humanity or the world. On the inside, which represents the student's values, qualities, and motivation, student writes what moves him or her to work for those dreams, and what "food" will be needed to nourish his or her quest for the dreams indicated on each of the five faces on the outside of the box. Leave some space on the inside for the additions of virtues during the study of the next chapter. Note: This box is a symbol of how using our values and inner motivation to accomplish our dreams we become more free and we become a leader. While our dreams may be humble and realistic it is the fit of the motivation with the goal which creates our integrity and our freedom. This box can serve as a metaphor to lead to the theme of the next chapter, "Living the Good Life." return
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CD:
Video:
*Outstanding Video Homeless to Harvard
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(pages 89-100) Objective:
Pre-reading: Encourage students to bring copies of their favorite fairy tales to class. Display them in class and have students choose at least one of them before getting to this chapter. Have students write a few sentences about why this is their favorite fairy tale. Discuss the tales from the viewpoint of the types of conflicts the characters encountered and the virtues they needed in order to be successful in reach their goals.(Make and post a class list of the virtues which class brainstorms.) (page 89-90: Current events/media influences: Conflicting messages about what constitutes the "good life.") Resources: Magazines and periodicals especially those geared to young people. Students analyse the social messages promoted in news and media characterising the most desirable lifestyes. Students create names for the types of lifestyles promoted and list them as a class. How realistic are they? What would a person need as a prerequisite to achieve the lifestyle? What would be the benefits of the lifestyles? What is the cost to the individual, community, environment of such a lifestyle? What is the legacy of the lifestyle? Why is this lifestyle promoted and by whom? Do you know anyone who actually lives this way? Virtues:
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Check with high school counselor
for a "learning and working styles inventory." It may be useful for students
to do a career assessment in conjunction with this section to serve as
a baseline for making choices on their path. Films:
To Sir With Love
Captains Courageous
Little Lord Fauntleroy
The Little Princess
Karate Kid
October Sky
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(pages 101-120) Students describe their life path up to the present, evaluate it in terms of personal growth and sense of purpose, and develop the tools to continue a life path which brings them eventually to a state of personal fulfillment. Activity
(prior to reading pages 101 to bottom of page 105): Create a Life-line
Present life-line to class. Students relate some of the events/choices represented on their life-line by mountains, valleys, and plateaus and describe how they felt or what they were thinking during those periods and why. How did those events determine the direction or influence their life path? Pages 106-111 (questions for discussion):
Discuss the "law of attraction and repulsion." Do any students have experiences with this concept? What are simple lessons and complex lessons? Who or what teaches us these? Pages
115-120
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© 2005 SNS Press
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