TRIBE Strong

“Building a Safe and Positive School Culture”

using the Character Strong Program

1st Period

Personality vs. Character

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will learn the difference between personality and character

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• What might be an example of something you do because of your personality?

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• What might be an example of something you do because of your character?

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While we have a lot of control over our character, our personality is something that comes pretty naturally to us. It is important to understand how our personality affects the way we do things so we can use it more effectively when practicing our character!

Ideal Shoe Activity

• You will have 3-4 minutes to draw and/or describe your ideal shoe on your piece of paper. Your ideal shoe can be made of ANYTHING and have any features you want. The sky’s the limit—Your shoes can look any way you want and do anything you want.

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• Share with your partner about your ideal shoe.
• 3-5 volunteers share with the class
• How do you think the description or drawing of your ideal shoe relates to your personality? What do you think your ideal shoe says about your personality?

We all have different things we prefer, different styles, different ways that we view the world, and different things we like. Personality is like our ideal shoe—we all have different things that we prefer in our footwear. Some people here prefer bright, flashy shoes. Those people probably have more of an outgoing personality. You likely wouldn’t wear loud shoes unless you were willing to be kind of loud yourself! Some people prefer comfortable shoes. Some people just want a shoe that does the job—a practical shoe.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved”- Helen Keller

Character Dare

2nd Period

Relationship Skills

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will be able to identify things they have in common with their classmates.
• Students will be able to develop an open atmosphere of communication and sharing.

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I Have Friends Who...

Teachers: Find an open space where students can stand and make a circle or have students stand-up and say “This is me” if the statement applies to them

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• Ask for a volunteer to come to the middle of the group.Our volunteer will say a statement. There are rules to the statements you can say. One, the statement must be something true about the person making this statement; two, the statement must be school appropriate; and, three, the statement can’t intentionally call someone else out.
• Examples
• I have friends who were born in a state other than the one we are in right now.
• I have friends who like the ocean.
• I have friends who have been to Mexico.

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Before we begin I need you to repeat after me: During this activity…

• I will not run
• I will not push
• I will not hold
• I will not grab”

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Next, the student in the middle of the circle finishes the statement, ‘I have friends who…’ If the statement applies to any student in the group, they must move to a new spot in the circle and the person in the middle fills in one of the empty spots. The last person to find a spot in the circle is now in the middle and repeats the process of saying, ‘I have friends who…’ The playful idea is that if someone moves because they have something in common with the statement, they are now ‘friends.’”

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If you cannot move chairs and or find an open spot, you can modify this activity by having a volunteer stand in the class and finish the prompt, “I have friends who…” out loud and if anyone else in the class has done that thing or associates with what was said they would stand up and say, “That’s me!” The teacher would then pick someone who stood up and said “That’s me!” to say the next “I have friends who…” statement.

• What interesting facts did you learn about each other?
• What happens when we become familiar with students we don’t know well or we don’t initially or necessarily like?

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Quick Shuffle

• Seven people from class stand in one line, side by side, in front of the rest of the class.
• Look at the group of seven people for ten or so seconds
• Close your eyes for 15-20 seconds, during which time the seven lined up should totally shuffle their positions. No one is to leave the line; each person simply moves to a new spot within it.

Open your eyes. You guys are now in charge of re-shuffling the group back to their original places.

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Work Together on This!

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If you are willing to pay attention, you will find that we have more in common than you might think. The more we find commonalities and treat each other with Kindness, the more we will come to like each other.

Character Dare

3rd Period

Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will reflect on their own character and identify ways they could improve it.
• Students will understand perspective-taking and what Fixed and Growth Mindsets look like in different scenarios

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We are going to think about Fixed and Growth Mindset today in regards to our personal perspectives. In many situations, a Fixed Mindset usually takes the perspective of ‘all or nothing,’ and they have a hard time looking at a situation from multiple perspectives. Fixed Mindsets use words like ‘always, everyone, never, etc…’ For example, they might say ‘I always fail my Geometry tests,’ or ‘She never lets me share my ideas.’ On the other hand, a Growth Mindset looks at a situation from multiple perspectives. They would take a perspective like ‘I am struggling on this concept in Geometry; I may need to stay after and get some one-on-one help.”

Scenario 1

Your friend decides to sit at a different table at lunch today. Someone with a Fixed Mindset would say, “He/she is mad at me. That’s why they aren’t sitting with me.” A Growth Mindset would say, “They might be sitting there because they need to study for a test with someone at that table, or maybe they are sitting there because they were invited to sit there. It doesn’t mean they don’t like me.

Scenario 2

You sent your friend a text with a question and they did not respond. It has been an hour and you’ve texted them the question again. A Fixed Mindset would say “I must not be that important; that’s why they aren’t responding.” A Growth Mindset would think of another perspective: “Maybe their phone died or maybe they are in the middle of a conversation and don’t want to be rude. Maybe their parents took their phone away. It may have nothing to do with me.

Author Brené Brown wrote that, in times where you want to get to the bottom of an issue with someone else that is bothering you, approach the person and say, ‘When you sat with someone else, the story I was creating in my head, was that you were mad at me.’ What this does is avoids putting the blame on the other person and they are then less likely to get defensive. It acknowledges you may be off or wrong about something.

Perspective Taking

• With a partner/group, create a scenario and come up with two options
• 1. How a Fixed Mindset would approach the situation
• 2. How a Growth Mindset would approach the situation.
• Write the scenario at the top of your paper. Below that make a T-Chart.
• On the left write ‘Fixed Mindset’
• On the right write ‘Growth Mindset.’
• Share with Class

To free ourselves from our Fixed Mindsets, we need to move to a Growth Mindset by thinking of multiple perspectives. Find one situation in the coming week and challenge yourself to think of multiple perspectives before making judgments. The author Shannon Alder wrote, ‘Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, ‘What else could this mean?’

Character Dare

4th Period

Comfort Zones

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will continue to learn the difference between personality and character.

Comfort Zones

• Designate spots in the classroom for the range of comfort (ie Not at All Comfortable, Sort of Comfortable, Very Comfortable)

Singing in front of others

Sitting quietly with nobody else around for an entire evening

Being part of large social gatherings where you have to interact with lots of different people

Working on long tasks that take focus and concentration on the details to get the project completed

Giving a speech in front of a hundred people

Dealing with change of any kind in life

On the next slide, you will see a wheel representing different personalities. Read over the lists and move to the corner that best represents you.

Even though we might all prefer different things because we have different personalities, ‘character’ is something we can ALL practice!

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Character Dare

5th Period

Motivation

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will be able to connect motivation to what they can control (Intrinsic) versus what they can’t control (Extrinsic).
• Students will be able to visualize future life goals and accomplishments and be able to identify actions they can control that can help them reach their goals.

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5-10 Year Timeline

• On a piece of paper, draw a line.
• On the far left, write 2019
• In the middle of the paper, write 2024.
• On the far right, write 2029
• Think of a major goal you’d like to accomplish in the next 5 years
• Write this next to 2024
• Between now and then, write down smaller steps you will need to take in order to accomplish this goal.
• Repeat these steps for a 10 year goal that you would like to reach by 2029
• Put an E (Extrinsic) or an I (Intrinsic) next to each goal you wrote down

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, the chances are that it will burn very briefly.” - Stephen Covey

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This quote is a great example of how motivation connects to your mindset. With a fixed mindset one’s fire (motivation) will burn for a very short period of time. With a growth mindset one’s fire (motivation) has the ability to burn even in times when it would seem like the conditions are not fit to start a fire.

Character Dare

6th Period

Types of Communication

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will understand the limitations of written, verbal, and social media communication

• What is an emoji?

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• What is the point of emojis?

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• Is it true that emojis help us know the emotion of the person who is texting us? Why do you think it’s important we know that emotion?

In the 1970’s, Dr. Albert Mehrabian (Mur-ay-bee-in) conducted research identifying the role words, tone, and body language play in our communication. His team found that only 7% of what we intend to communicate in emotional communication comes from our words. 38% comes from our tone. 55% comes from our body language.

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What does this mean about the way we should communicate when engaging in a typically emotional conversation? In person or using text?

Verbal Communication

• Who do you think the Deliverer is on this diagram? And who is the Perceiver?
• Why do you think we use the term Perceiver when we talk about the person who is receiving the information? What is the difference between ‘perceive’ and ‘receive?’ Take a few minutes to take in this image
• Who wants to tell me what they think the difference between receiver and perceiver means?
• Why might it be important for us to know that another person’s perception of what we are attempting to communicate is outside of our control when it comes to communicating with others?

Written Communication

• What differences do you see between verbal and written communication?
• What do you think is the difference between written communication and social media communication?
• What does the role of having an audience play when it comes emotional conversations?

Social Media Communication

• How is communication different on social media?

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• Of the three forms of communication we’ve looked at today, what do you think is going to help us maintain our relationships with people most effectively and why?

Discussion Questions

• Take a few minutes and recall the last misunderstanding you had with someone using written communication.

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• When you mess up and fail at communicating effectively, how do you fix it?

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• What value does ownership of your failure to communicate have when it comes to earning Respect from others?

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This week monitor how you communicate with others using social media. When applicable, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and FaceTime, Skype, or whatever you guys do these days to get on the same page with each other!

Character Dare

7th Period

Make Kindness Normal

Put Name Tent on Table/Desk

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Objectives

• Students will identify what is “normal” in their life.
• Students will set a goal of consistently practicing the act of Kindness in their life.

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Make Kindness Normal

• Have you ever thought about that word, ‘Normal?’ What does that word mean to you?

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• How do things become normal in your life? At our school?

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• Who decides what is normal?

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Our goal today is to think about ONE way that we could bring more Kindness into our lives and help change what is ‘normal’ around here for the better!”

• Remember, Kindness is about showing attention, appreciation, or encouragement to people. So, where do you see a need for more Kindness?”

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• Brainstorm lists of NEEDS for Kindness and ways to PRACTICE.
• For each kindness need, brainstorm “WHEN” and “WHY.

Think about one way you will practice Kindness to help make CUHS a kinder place.

Character Dare