This week focuses on the challenges that come with having responsibilities at home and in school with family and friends. Students will explore the idea that responsibility means having the ability to respond to life’s daily challenges, and how part of getting older is learning how to set up a response-plan to get everything completed. Some would call this week a training in executive functioning.
Watch the video introduction and lesson by David Levine, Director of the Teaching Empathy Institute.
Listen to the song, Who Am I? This song was written by some students who felt a lot of social pressure, school pressure, and home pressure. Follow along (and sing along if you wish!) using the lyrics provided.
Download: Who am I? Lyrics
After listening to Who Am I?, think of times when you felt a lot of pressure in your life with your friends, with your school work, and at home. Another way to look at pressures is to call them responsibilities.
Write down all the responsibilities you have at home.
Tomorrow we will focus more on your list.
Today we are going to look at the word responsibility in a different way. You might think it means “stuff I am required to do.” Another way to understand this word is to break it up like this:
Respond: Respond means an action you take when you have something to do.
Ability: Ability means something you do well.
Put these words together and responsibility means to be good at doing something you are required to do.
Now go back to your list of responsibilities from yesterday and choose one.
Write a “response plan” and follow your plan at home today with one of your responsibilities. Share your plan with the other people in your home.
Here is an example: My (filled in) Respond-Ability Action Plan
And here is a sheet for you to fill out: Blank Respond-Ability Action Plan
Yesterday you wrote your response plan.
Did you carry it out? If so, how did it go? If not, make sure you do so today.
When you respond to your daily challenges by thinking and planning before doing and acting, you will not only feel less pressure but you will also learn more about your gifts.
Listen to the song We All Have a Gift. I wrote this song after studying Native American culture and history in the U.S., and how they needed their family members and their larger community to complete their tasks so the tribe could survive. As they completed their tasks, they often discovered a talent or gift they had which helped their people.
After listening to the song, complete this sentence:
One of my talents is…
Today choose one of your responsibilities and make a respond-ability poster showing all the steps you must follow to carry out your response plan. You can draw pictures, use words; whatever you like. Be creative, have fun, and hang your poster where you can see it.
You can listen to the following songs as you make your respond-ability poster.