Pillar: Caring
Purpose: Help students think about and prepare for what caring looks like and sounds like in challenging circumstances.
Objectives:
- Provide an opportunity to think about what caring looks like and sounds like in challenging circumstances.
- Through role-play or group discussion, help students prepare what they will say and do in real-life situations.
Discussion: Ask students to brainstorm situations they’ve been in when they wanted to show someone that they cared, but didn’t know what to say or do. What made it hard to demonstrate caring in those situations? (Example: Telling a friend that they shouldn’t do something because they might get in trouble).
Activity:
Have students create a role-play demonstrating how each of the following situations could be handled with caring (could adapt activity to be small or large group discussion as well):
- While waiting in line in a store, the clerk ignores you and waits on the person behind you.
- A friend is at a party and you notice he is drinking too much.
- You and a close friend both applied for a job.You were hired, but your friend was not.
- There is an optional school trip and most of your friends are going but two come from families who cannot afford to go.
- You discover that both parents of one of your classmates have lost their jobs and the family is now living in their car.
- You are good friends with both people in a couple and they have a nasty break-up.
- You suspect a friend may be coping with a family member who has an addiction issue.
- A good friend of yours is struggling with some personal issues.His grades slip and he finds out that he will not be able to graduate high school.
- A friend is telling jokes that are slightly racist and you suspect she does not realize she is offending people.
- There is a dance at your school, but one of your friends had to get a part-time job to support his family, so he can’t go.
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