Pillar: Trustworthiness
Purpose: Help students understand how critical trustworthiness is to successful schools, friendships, communities, and relationships.
Objectives:
- Students will discuss what happens in schools, friendships, communities, and relationships when there is no trust, partial trust, and complete trust.
- Students will be able to state why trust is critical to the success of schools, friendships, communities, and relationships.
Discussion: Ask students to discuss the proverb, “Honesty makes you rich, but she works slowly.” Questions may include:
- How do you think honesty makes you rich?
- Why does it work slowly?
- If you own a business, and you’re honest with everyone you do business with, what will your reputation be?
- What will your reputation be if you lie occasionally or your business practices are not honest?
- Do you agree with the proverb?Why or why not?
- What would you say to someone who says that you have to cheat to get ahead or that trustworthiness is a disadvantage?
- Describe three ways that honesty makes you rich.
- What can you do to bring each of these kinds of wealth into your life?
Activity:
Divide students into four groups. Draw the diagram below on the board, or have each group draw the diagram on a sheet of paper.
Group 1: Ask this group to describe the climate of a school when each of the trust levels depicted in the diagram are present between students and faculty or staff. What kind of environment do these levels of trust (or lack thereof) create?
Group 2: Ask this group to indicate what can happen in a friendship if the various levels of trust are present. What kinds of interactions would (or would not) occur between friends under the conditions described in the diagram?
Group 3: Ask this group to describe the climate of the community where the various levels of trust indicated in the diagram are present between community members and authority-holders. What adjective would describe the community at each of these levels?
Group 4: Ask this group to describe what a personal relationship with a romantic partner would look like at each of the levels of trust indicated in the diagram. What would be possible at each level? What kind of future would the relationship have at each level?
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