Lesson Plan: Caring
Six Pillar Shuffle

Time in session: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Evaluation time: 5 minutes
 

Goal: To present the Caring pillar from Character Counts!sm to participants and discuss "who should teach character?".
 
Objective 1: To increase participant understanding of "Who Should Teach Character Education". (15-20 minutes)

Section:
"Who Should Teach Character?" from the Character Counts!sm curriculum

Overheads 1 - 22

Outcome: Each participant will report an increased awareness of the people or institutions responsible for teaching character.

Presenter says:
Who should teach character?

Overheads 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 19

Presenter says:
Let's remember that children such as Anne Frank, youth such as Olympic gymnasts, and adults such as Helen Keller and John Glenn are character heroes for each of us.

Presenter asks:
What role does the school have in teaching children and youth character?

Overheads 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 20, 21, and  22

Presenter says:
The purpose of the TAEX character education program is to build community support for families and children so that good character can be learned and modeled. None of us want to replace parents; rather we want to support parents to be the best parents they can be. The Character Counts!sm pillar that will help us achieve that goal is Caring.
 
 
 
Objective 2: To increase participant understanding of the Caring pillar from the Character Counts!sm curriculum.
(10-15 minutes)

Section:
Character Counts!sm Six Pillars: Caring 

Overheads 1 - 45

Outcome: Each participant will report an increased understanding of the pillar on Caring from the Character Counts!sm curriculum.

Note: This objective has been shortened to allow more time for Objective 3. The activity in Objective 3 uses most of the overheads which ties the two objectives together nicely.

Presenter says:
The symbol for caring is the heart, an appropriate symbol that conveys love and concern for others. Here are two good examples of caring:

Overheads 1, 2, 7, and 13

Presenter says:
In the sessions for the other character pillars, you have spent more time discussing the various meaning for caring. In preparing this lesson, it seemed that the pillar caring is not controversial in terms of meaning. We will make the best use of our time if we move on to putting the pillar caring into action. But before I leave this brief discussion of what caring is -- does anyone have a comment or concern about what the character pillar Caring means?
 
 
 
Objective 3: To increase experience of counties and groups in using and developing activities to promote six pillars. (30 minutes)

Section: 
Character Counts!sm Six Pillar: Caring 

Overheads 1 - 45

Outcome: Each participant will participate in activities that TAEX team shares with group. Participants will share other ideas for promoting character activities.

Presenter says:
We are going to practice applying the principle of caring to different situations. I have duplicated lots of handouts for your groups to use during this exercise. Please feel free to take one or two with you when you move on to the next session.

Activity:
In small groups.

  1. Talk about which caring statements would work best for your audience. You may decide that some audiences would enjoy most of the statements while other audiences would not.

    2.  
  2. Why might one group not respond to a particular statement?

    3. Race or ethnicity
    Age or gender
    Health issue or physical disability
    Life experiences
    Language barrier
    Other?
     

  3. How can you change a statement to better fit your audience?
Presenter says:
The pillar Caring is a comfortable pillar for us to talk about but not quite as easy to act on. Most of us feel caring but aren't quite so sure how the other person will receive our caring behavior. You can be sure that many of the participants in your program will feel the same way. Make sure you give them permission to show their caring in a way that keeps everybody safe.

Please be sure to complete the evaluation section of this pillar.

Thanks for your hard work. Thank you.

 

 

Educational programs of the Texas Cooperative Extension are open to all people without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age, or national origin.

Last updated: November 5, 2001