INTERVENTIONS FROM SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
(en)Courage
The Eight-Activity Framework
2016-17
Table of Contents
The Major Activities (on one page!)
The Essential Instructional Prompts (on one page!)
The Rationale behind our Activities
A High School Principal’s Commentary on the Eight-Activity Framework
Part One: Stimulus – Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations
What would you do? The presenter describes a situation involving the topic of the lesson (e.g., conformity, the bystander effect, situation blindness). Students are encouraged to explore how they think that they and others would typically act if they were in that situation.
Discover the science of situations. Students are presented with examples (videos and stories), that illustrate and explain what happens in social situations that influence our behavior. This includes the social dynamics, the reasons why these dynamics are normal and understandable, and how we are all automatically susceptible to these dynamics. In addition, we cite examples of specific social situations where reacting automatically can be problematic or dangerous.
Part Two: Exploration
Think of a time… Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies when responding to certain situations, involving the topic of the lesson, by thinking of a time in their lives when they both did and did act in a way they would have preferred.
Decide for yourself. Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves if the lesson topic matters to them and if they have a desire make a change in their skills and awareness of that process.
Part Three: Making Decisions and Taking Action
Develop effective strategies. Students explore common psychological obstacles to taking effective action, connect them to the stories from the previous activities, and reflect on research-based solutions to them.
Plan for the next challenge. Armed with change-making strategies from the previous activity, students’ start visualizing a more productive way to deal with a specific upcoming situation that matters to them and involves the process the lesson is attempting to change. They do so by developing a concrete plan, setting personal goals, and incorporating research-based strategies for overcoming likely obstacles.
Part Four: Advocacy
Your personal take-aways. Students reflect on their personal ‘take away’ from the lesson; the ideas they found the most interesting, useful, or surprising.
Teach back and spread the word. Once students develop effective change-making strategies, they are now prepared to share them with others.
The Essential Instructional Prompts (on One Page!)
Part I. Stimulus—Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations
What would you do?
Discover the science behind situations. Ask students to imagine that they are a detective or an alien from another planet making sense of the situation.
Part II. Exploration
Think of a time… Ask students to reflect on two experiences when they did, and did not stand up in a situation related to the topic.
Decide for yourself. Have students identify a situation where <name the key concept, i.e., the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, spotlight effect> plays a role in how someone acts.
Part III. Making Decisions and Taking Action Action
Develop Effective Strategies. Identify and label each obstacle to action. Then choose which are most relevant. Then explore the solutions outlined in the right hand column.
Plan for the next challenge. Ask students to pick a realistic situation they want to address in the near future. This situation should contain the following elements:
Part IV. Advocacy
Your personal take-away
Teach back and spread the word “If you were to take just five minutes to tell a friend or family member how _______ works, what they can do to respond effectively upon encountering it?”
The Rationale behind our Major Activities
Our eight major activities were developed by Clint Wilkins and Bryan Dickerson and have been piloted in various forms and venues for the past three years. Each activity is based on the most recent and effective research in social psychology. Each activity is also intended to increase both a student’s awareness and change-making skills. Additionally, our activities have been constructed and ordered in such a way that they scaffold and reinforce each other synergistically.
Our activities are designed to fit into regular classroom environment, in after-school programs and in youth development organizations and can be “mixed and matched” as need be by the instructor. Our original lessons were designed for high-schools students and college undergraduates, and we are now adapting our materials for middle-school age and eventually for elementary-age students.
PART I. STIMULUS: UNCOVERING WHAT IS HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW
Objective of Part I: To introduce students to the powerful, controlling forces within situations and deepen their personal understanding on how individuals tend to react to them
What Would You Do? The teacher describes a challenging situation (such as the bystander effect). Students explore how they think they and others would typically act. (Generally people underestimate the power of social situations and assume that they would act in an ideal manner.)
Steps to learning:
Outcome: The students reveal their preconceived notions about human behavior in social situations and in so doing get warmed up and engaged for the next activity and the learning that will follow.
The major teaching techniques: “Idea generation” and generating probing questions that students will answer as the entire lesson unfolds.
Discover the Science of Situations. Students view a video that captures the key concepts for the entire lesson as well as the range of normal human responses to a particular kind of situation. Then, students are given verbal descriptions and a graphical handout illustrating how this phenomenon works, how we tend to react automatically and how this situation tends to affect individuals in a universal (or culturally bound) way, as well offering explanation of why this process is a normal part of human psychology. Presenters are given discussion questions to facilitate the internalization of the information.
Steps to learning:
Outcome. Many students will experience and “aha moment” whey they realize these forces are always going on around them—hidden, as it were, in plain view. As students become more conversant with the science of situations, they also become more adept at navigating challenging situations and connecting what they have learned to their own lives.
The major teaching techniques: Students learn how to draw out evidence from research and evidence from the lives of others. They also learn about the dynamics and processes behind common social situations and how normal it is for individuals to react so automatically.
PART II. EXPLORATION
Objective of Part II. Students connect their own emotional and personal reactions to challenging situations, and in the process convince themselves that they can do something positive in the face of these situations.
Think of a Time Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies in the face of challenging situations by thinking of a time in their lives when they both did and did not act in a way they would have preferred.
Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies when reacting to situations by reflecting on past experiences. Students then share these stories first with their partner(s). Then the presenter asks several students to share their stories with the class. Having students share a range of past experiences reveals how variable people react to challenging social situations, and shows that positive change is achievable, demonstrates that automatic tendencies are normal and builds empathy. We suggest that there is no more compelling way to encourage students to internalize that they have the potential to behave in their preferred manner than to reveal to them that they have already done so in the past.
Steps to learning:
Outcome. Students learn that they naturally and instinctively possess the ability to respond effectively to challenging situations. They also see how most people, most of the time react automatically in the face of new and ambiguous situations.
The major teaching techniques: Drawing on evidence from the lives of others, appreciating how normal automatic responses can be, and the power of giving students the opportunity for formal and guided reflection.
Decide for Yourself. Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves that topic (bystander, peer pressure, discrimination) matters and is worthwhile for them to try to solve. This is an activity where you can pick up the pace, not break into groups and get quick responses that you write down on a flip chart or white board. Affirm the responses; don’t analyze them too much.)
Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves if: 1) the topic matters to them, 2) if they believe it is relevant to their lives, and 3) if they have a desire make a change in their skills, awareness, and tendencies in the face of the situation. Students share their ideas first with their partner(s) and then several students are asked to share their thoughts with the entire group.
We suggest that if students are allowed to decide for themselves on what is most important to their lives, as well as simultaneously appreciating the skills and awareness needed to begin to change, they will become intrinsically motivated to initiate and sustain positive change. Put another way, when students are presented with examples that positive change is possible, many will naturally attempt to do so if they are first given time to explore their own minds and internalize the information presented.
Steps:
Outcome: Students put the issues in their own words, get buy-in and decide for themselves when it is important to get involved.
The major teaching techniques: Idea generation, self-reflection, and advocacy.
PART THREE: MAKING DECISIONS AND TAKING ACTION
Objective of Part III. To prepare students to know what they can do to overcome challenging situations
Develop Effective Strategies Students explore common barriers and obstacles to taking effective action and reflect on research-based solutions to them. Here, students are educated regarding common social obstacles to making change. This activity includes the following components:
Steps to learning:
Outcome. Students now have a concrete framework for understanding the obstacles and forces found in challenging situations. In addition they are equipped with the tools and strategies they need to take wise and effective action.
The major teaching techniques: Students learn how to understand evidence from research, how to build strategies for action.
Plan for the Next Challenge Armed with the strategic tools from the previous activity, students start visualizing more productive ways to deal with a specific upcoming challenging situation that matters to them. They do so by developing a concrete plan, setting personal goals and incorporating strategies for overcoming common obstacles—utilizing a worksheet to develop a concrete plan—involving the following tasks:
Students first share their plan with their partner(s) and then several students are asked to share their plan with the entire group. Additionally, creating this plan helps to reinforce in students the social forces affecting them and how, specifically, they go about actualizing their intentions and goals. The skills they develop from this rehearsal helps them to set similar goals around other related tendencies, and modify and revise their original plans as needed over time.
Steps:
1) Students break into groups of two or three and pick a realistic situation relevant to the topic (e.g., the bystander effect), one in which they want to address in their real lives in the near future.
2) They elaborate on the situation: “Who is there?” “What is going on?”
3) They describe what might happen if they went with their automatically tendency.
4) They decide on their personal goal for the situation: “How do you want to respond?”
5) They anticipate potential obstacles and strategize on how they would overcome them.
Outcome: This activity culminates in students’ making a public commitment to act on their intentions, which increases the likelihood that they will act in their preferred manner
The major teaching techniques: goal setting, envisioning both positive and negative outcomes and learning how to adapt to changes in plans.
PART IV. ADVOCACY
Objective: To consolidate and internalize students’ learning so that it becomes natural and compelling
Your Personal Take-away Students reflect on the key concept of the day from their own perspective. This is the simplest and most personal of all our activities, and includes the ideas they found the most interesting, useful, or surprising. This is intended to help consolidate what they have learned, center themselves and gain sense of closure to their experience. Several students are called upon to share with the group, but students do not pair off with their partner(s) in this activity.
This is also an activity where you can pick up the pace, not break into groups and get quick responses that you write down on a flip chart or white board. Affirm the responses; don’t elaborate.
Steps:
Outcome: Students get in touch with what motivates and energizes them to action. They just need to center themselves long enough to discover it. We want students to say to themselves, “I know what is the right thing to do in this particular situation. I know what is most important to me. Give me the opportunity to try this out in real time in real life.” This activity can be extraordinarily powerful.
The major teaching technique: Self-reflection.
Teach Back and Spread the Word. Once students develop effective change-making strategies, they are now prepared to share them with others. Students are encouraged to share what they have learned with others. We have students use a worksheet to identify: 1) one thing that they learned today that they feel would be of benefit to others, 2) one person they would like to share the information with, and then 3) sign the worksheet as a form of al/public commitment. This activity can be as short as five minutes, or can be as long as a full-semester service-learning project, applying, for example, the bystander lesson to counteract bullying in a local middle school.
Steps to learning:
Outcome: Students find their voice and learn how to advocate for change. To quote Geoff Cohen, an expert on psychological interventions and a professor at Stanford University, we want students to feel that “I am valued, I belong, and I can do it!”
The major teaching technique: advocacy.
Final Thoughts. Throughout this series of activities, we do not persuade the students so much as they persuade themselves. No one tells them what they should or must do. No one tells them who they should be. Instead, students are merely presented with a series of activities, some of which may surprise them and cause them to see the world through a new set of eyes, as they discover things for themselves. When all is said and done, your students will take their insights and their strategies with them as they confront and overcome the challenging situations they will repeatedly encounter in their everyday lives.
A High School Principal’s Commentary on Our Activities
Clint Wilkins
The Overall Learning Process. You will take your “students” through a series of activities that have been carefully sequenced, engineered and are based on the most up-to-date research in social and cognitive psychology. Within each lesson are three clusters of activities.
· Part I. Stimulus. Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations. The first cluster of activities focuses on what is often “hidden in plain view”—the powerful and invisible dynamics behind our everyday social situations and what we take for granted about ourselves in the face of these situations.
· Part II. Exploration. The second cluster of activities is all about understanding ourselves in challenging situations. Students start by “thinking of a time” when they either did or did not stand up in a challenging situation and then explore scenarios when it would be wise not to confront a challenging situation.
· Part III. Making Decisions and Taking Action. Then they get to press what we call the “pause button,” where they replace automatic reactivity for more mindful reflection on various courses of action. Then they learn research-based practical skills and develop a step-by-step plan in anticipation of a future challenge.
· Part IV. Advocacy. Students distill down what they have learned and center
themselves about what is most important to them as change agents. Finally they advocate a course of action for others, whether it is a brief speech, a video or an essay. This last component we call “teaching back.”
The Learning Environment. In order for young people to learn how to become courageous and effective change agents, the learning environment needs to be safe. How else can young people reveal enough of themselves to take the emotional risks needed to venture out of their comfort zones so that they can stand up and speak out in the face of challenging situations?
Courage is the pivot point of standing up and speaking out. It is actually the essential element in bringing about positive social change. As Winston Churchill said, courage is “first of human qualities, as it is the quality that guarantees all others.” And as Maya Angelou said, “Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.”
Keep in mind that for some students, just talking in class is an act of courage. For others, being the first in their family to go to college is a sustained act of courage. Whatever the level of fear and apprehension, courage is the character trait that can be mobilized in driving students toward envisioning and planning for a better future.
Keep in mind, also, the following small pieces of advice. Respect your students as full partners in this journey of inquiry. You will surprise them. Don’t come into the intervention with a moral agenda. This, too, will surprise them. As the students delve deeper and deeper into the lesson, you will find them suspending their natural teenage urge to be skeptical of adults and a gain a greater sense of trust.
In addition, do not force any self-disclosure upon them, and be careful about embarrassing them publicly. Don’t put them on the spot. Strike the right tone—respectful and with seriousness of purpose but also light and intellectually playful. Scientific inquiry need not be dour and pedestrian, but rather is fun and creative. Use humor when appropriate, for this is a powerful way to engage them. And most of all, be kind. It goes along way.
PART I. UNCOVERING THE HIDDEN POWER OF SOCIAL SITUATIONS
Objective: To introduce students to the powerful, controlling forces within situations and deepen their personal understanding on how they tend to react
What Would You Do?
Student Outcome: for students to develop an informal hypothesis about how they would behave in a certain situation, an hypothesis that will be tested out in the next activity on the “science of situations.”
The Main Idea. to set the stage and the tone for the entire lesson by immediately engaging the students, having them experience their own, automatic reactions to a challenging situation. We want to underscore that this entire intervention is experiential and that the power comes from students’ level of engagement and commitment in it from start to finish.
Notes on the Learning Process. The teacher in this activity is a storyteller, painting a vivid verbal picture of the scene and calling on the students to exercise their imaginations in identifying with both the people and the situation. The teacher will not want to overstate the situation and certainly will not want to be passing judgment or in any way suggesting any preferred way of acting. The teacher will want to be engaging yet neutral.
Discover the Science of Situations
Student Outcome: students have an “aha” experience of uncovering and naming one or more of the universal psychological dynamics behind common social situations. If the lesson is about the bystander effect, for example, one such dynamic would be diffusion of responsibility—the more people on the scene the less likely you, or anyone else in the group will intervene. Another such dynamic would be group ignorance—which is essentially that you misread the intentions and the mood of the group itself and members within it.
The Main Idea. Young people will find both the videos and the content matter of this activity intrinsically fascinating. Keep in mind that they tend to be deeply appreciative of any activity that helps them to make sense of how the world around them works, and this is especially so when it comes to social situations that are new, ambiguous and challenging. These videos and the commentary of the experts about common situations are kind of like “experience in a bottle” for them. You will find that young people will view this activity as a way to gain greater social competence and also a way to spare them from unnecessary embarrassment. Think of this activity as providing young people with a “learning permit for life.”
In addition, young peoples’ behavior can vary greatly, depending on their circumstances or their moods, and by focusing on the power of situations we remove the judgment and the guilt often associated with their own behavior.
Notes on the Learning Process. We have found that the best way to teach “situation awareness” is through guided inquiry.
We start with a story – from a scientific experiment or from real life events – best captured on one of our short videos. Then we take teenagers through a series of exercises culminating in the articulation of the most prominent scientifically based social dynamics.
This activity also is the first step in helping young people start to recognize patterns of behavior they encounter all around them. This is particularly helpful, as they are able to stand back from the interpersonal drama that characterizes so much of a teenager’s world and see the big picture that tends to be obscured by their focus on who is in the in-group and who is in the out-group. By focusing on the situation and not the people as individuals, young people are introduced to one of the most important—and useful—of all the lessons in social psychology. It is called, rather inelegantly “the fundamental attribution error.”
The Major Take-away: The Element of Surprise. If the topic is the bystander effect, we want each student to say, “You mean to tell me that diffusion of responsibility was there all along—hidden in plain view—and I wasn’t aware of it? I just cracked the code!” This surprise should be a pleasurable experience.
PART II. EXPLORATION
Objective: To connect the challenging situation to their own lives and consider
Think of a Time
Student Outcome: for students to more deeply explore their own tendencies in the face of challenging situations.
The Main Idea. By helping young people to get in more in touch with their own lives, particularly when they either did or did not stand up or speak out in a challenging situation, we are setting the stage for the essence of this whole lesson: learning exactly how they can change themselves and the world around them. This is most powerfully done through gaining access to the stories we tell ourselves that explain how the world works and our roles within it, what psychologists call attributions.
This is particularly important for young people, as there is nothing more important to them than to figure out who they are (identity) and how and where they fit in (belonging).
Teenagers are fascinated with their own identity and the identity of others. They intuitively (and painfully) understand just how easily they can take on a variety of personas, depending on the circumstances. As William James wrote more than a century ago, “a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.”
Young people not only want to try on various identities and selves on for size; they crave it, especially under the aegis of sympathetic and supportive adults. Give them the opportunity to tell their story, free of fear of negative judgment and embarrassment, and they will seize it.
Story telling about their inner lives is one of the most powerful ways to gain access to this world and a great way to make the prior activity—the science of social situations— become more relevant and powerful. (I am particularly interested in the work of Tim Wilson, a professor at University of Virginia and how he uses core narratives and story editing to effect personal change.)
These two needs—identity and belonging—also form the foundation for taking actions that might involve social risk and go against grain, the topics of the next three activities.
Notes on the Learning Process. In small groups students tell each other their stories, bringing to the surface experiences in the past when they either did, or did not stand up in the face of a challenging situation. Then, they are given the opportunity (not mandatory) to share their stories with the larger group.
In bringing past events to the surface the participants see first hand how malleable and vulnerable they are to situational influences and also get in touch with tension that is at play inside them, between who they are, who they want to be and how others see them. This state of disequilibrium is often referred to as cognitive dissonance. Once this tension is felt, it begs to be resolved. Thus, this activity is a natural catalyst for the subsequent activities of this intervention, where we will systematically assist young people to resolve the dissonance that has just been triggered.
The Major Take-Away: to leave students confirming what they already knew about themselves—that they are capable of being both passive and proactive and this inconsistency is entirely normal, even expected. There is no stigma to standing on the sidelines.
Decide for Yourself
Student Outcome: to open students’ minds to alternative ways of responding to stressful situations and to pause long enough to replace automatic, knee-jerk reactions with more mindful responsiveness.
The Main Idea. Teenagers are natural contrarians and extraordinarily adept at exposing the inconsistencies in others’ behavior. They are very good at challenging both conventional wisdom and authority figures. Give them the opportunity to argue, and they will not disappoint. This is precisely what we want them to do in this activity: develop their own rationale for action. Giving them license to be argumentative is a powerful way to develop alternative ways to behave. This is nothing other than developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Give young people the freedom to hone these skills and you will find how energizing this activity can be.
The Learning Process. Working with a partner, we encourage students to articulate alternatives to the behavior of individuals in the opening activity. We emphasize such questions as:
Whether they know it or not, they are pressing what we call the “pause button,” so they can access the space between stimulus and response. As they let their guards down, they are more ready to start entertaining new options. Furthermore, this activity is the logical next step in the process of resolving the cognitive dissonance that was set up in the prior activity, Think of a Time.
The Major Take-Away: Once they have explored options and been given the chance to articulate their own interpretations, students are now ready and eager (and primed) to take on real world problems and in particular to want tangible strategies, plans and tactics to make them more effective. (This take-away sets them up for the next two activities.)
PART III: MAKING DECISIONS AND TAKING ACTION
Develop Effective Strategies
Objective: To prepare students to know what they can do to overcome challenging situations
Student Outcome: to equip students with effective, research-based tools they need to take action.
The Main Idea. Young people are natural change makers and care passionately about changing the world for the better. They are idealists at heart. Give them the chance to express their idealism and act on it, however small the cause may be, and it can power a lifetime of social change. I know. I have lived it as a school principal and mentor to generations of young people. (I also know that ignoring or quashing this idealistic spirit can result in indifference and cynicism.)
This activity is the first step in building habits. Sociologists call it agency, and psychologists call it self-efficacy. Whatever we call it, courage is key.
Notes on the Learning Process. We go back to the original situation from the first activity, or take on another scenario, and explore what ordinary people can do to turn a challenging situation into something positive, with an emphasis on key decision points. For example, we systematically analyze dynamics of “the bystander effect,” entertaining a “cost-benefit” approach to change in the following steps:
As young people overcome the various barriers and entertain various solutions, their perspectives—whether about themselves or the world around them—the begin to shift their thinking and they start to see that small things can make a big difference if they have the right tools and the right tactics. This is called social leverage.
The Major Take-Away: being a changemaker is easier than you think; you just need to get the hang of it (this is the second major surprise).
Plan for the Next Challenge
Student Outcome. Create a personal goal and a strategy for effectively tackling a challenging situation.
The Main Idea. Armed with tools of change-making and a first taste in experiencing the power of courage, young people can then put these tools to use in imagining a more productive future for themselves and others. In this activity young people not only get to visualize a better future; they get very concrete in how they will get there. This activity meets another critical need of young people: to gain greater control their environment.
We need to give young people both the tools to put their sense of idealism into practice and the opportunity to exercise the courage of their convictions. We do this in small, incremental steps fueled by carefully calibrated doses of courage. This gives them a taste for positive change, that it is not so daunting and intimidating and off-putting to others as they may have initially feared. And once they get the taste, they will be encouraged (literally) to seek out the experience in the future and even sustain it.
Notes on the Learning Process. We start by giving students the chance to create a vision of a better future. This is called a “goal intention” in psychology. Then we give them the opportunity to create the steps they need to take in getting there. This is called an “implementation intention.”
They walk through various “if-then” scenarios, incorporating the tactics they have learned from the previous activity, such tools as our “powers of one, two and three,” and enlisting the courage they will need to put their intention into action.
The Major Take-Away: by breaking down the job of being a changemaker into steps toward a goal, a journey of discovery, a scientific experiment, then the whole experience is more rewarding, and students have more control and more fun in the process.
PART IV. ADVOCACY
Objective: To consolidate and internalize the learning so that it becomes natural and compelling
Your Personal Take-away
Student Outcome. to identify in concrete terms what motivates each student and reinforce the key lessons of the intervention.
The Main Idea. It is a vital need for teenagers to take seriously their own passions, to center themselves around what is most important to them and to affirm their own core values. This is the spark that can ignite action.
Notes on the Learning Process. We start by offering students the opportunity to identify the one thing they have learned about themselves through this intervention, the one thing they have learned about the power of situations, and the one thing they want to change in their school or community. In addition, we get from students the commitment to doing the right thing.
The Major Take-Away: students are centered and prepared for the final activity.
Teach Back and Spread the Word
Student Outcome: for students to find their voice and practice what they will teach others.
The Main Idea. Once young people have a platform and a voice, once they are given permission from the authority figures to “speak truth to power,” once they realize how pleasurable it is to “stand up and speak out,” once they have taught it to others, they will want to experience it again and again. This intervention is but the first step on a longer journey that will take place naturally and authentically whenever challenging situations present themselves.
Notes on the Learning Process. After planning and organizing thoughts, students put their thoughts in an order that will be persuasive. They work in small groups to rehearse and then some will present their “lesson” to the larger group. We believe that this activity is the culmination of students’ experience throughout the intervention of self-persuasion. Also, by making a public commitment their learning will be solidified further. Finally, this will be the culmination of their developing a new core narrative.
The Major Take-away. We want to leave them with another surprise: being a changemaker is a great experience. It is fun. It is something they are bursting at the seams to do. To quote Geoff Cohen, an expert on psychological interventions and a professor at Stanford University, “I am valued. I belong. I can do it!”
Final Thoughts. Throughout this lesson you will be surprised how often and how fundamentally we turn traditional learning on its ear. Here are a few examples. This kind of experiential learning doesn’t really take place during the lesson itself; it takes place afterwards and is far more internal than external. This lesson is more about uncovering insights and passion than about covering content in social psychology. In some ways students must go through a certain amount of unlearning before growth occurs.
By training high school students to teach our lessons, learning becomes that much more effective, for who better to guide them in to become more skillful and knowledgeable – and more positive – about their social lives and their social challenges. This is the power of peer learning.
And finally, when all is said and done, we as teachers do not persuade our students as much as they persuade themselves. No one has told them what they must, or should do. Instead, students are merely presented with a series of surprises they confronted and puzzles they were called upon to figure out for themselves. This is what social psychologists call self-persuasion, which is the most effective kind of persuasion of all.
(en)Courage
The Eight-Activity Framework
2016-17
Table of Contents
The Major Activities (on one page!)
The Essential Instructional Prompts (on one page!)
The Rationale behind our Activities
A High School Principal’s Commentary on the Eight-Activity Framework
Part One: Stimulus – Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations
What would you do? The presenter describes a situation involving the topic of the lesson (e.g., conformity, the bystander effect, situation blindness). Students are encouraged to explore how they think that they and others would typically act if they were in that situation.
Discover the science of situations. Students are presented with examples (videos and stories), that illustrate and explain what happens in social situations that influence our behavior. This includes the social dynamics, the reasons why these dynamics are normal and understandable, and how we are all automatically susceptible to these dynamics. In addition, we cite examples of specific social situations where reacting automatically can be problematic or dangerous.
Part Two: Exploration
Think of a time… Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies when responding to certain situations, involving the topic of the lesson, by thinking of a time in their lives when they both did and did act in a way they would have preferred.
Decide for yourself. Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves if the lesson topic matters to them and if they have a desire make a change in their skills and awareness of that process.
Part Three: Making Decisions and Taking Action
Develop effective strategies. Students explore common psychological obstacles to taking effective action, connect them to the stories from the previous activities, and reflect on research-based solutions to them.
Plan for the next challenge. Armed with change-making strategies from the previous activity, students’ start visualizing a more productive way to deal with a specific upcoming situation that matters to them and involves the process the lesson is attempting to change. They do so by developing a concrete plan, setting personal goals, and incorporating research-based strategies for overcoming likely obstacles.
Part Four: Advocacy
Your personal take-aways. Students reflect on their personal ‘take away’ from the lesson; the ideas they found the most interesting, useful, or surprising.
Teach back and spread the word. Once students develop effective change-making strategies, they are now prepared to share them with others.
The Essential Instructional Prompts (on One Page!)
Part I. Stimulus—Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations
What would you do?
- “What do you think you would you do in this situation?”
- “What do you think most people would do?”
Discover the science behind situations. Ask students to imagine that they are a detective or an alien from another planet making sense of the situation.
- “What happened?”
- “What do you imagine they were thinking and feeling?”
- Why do you think they acted the way they did?
- “Could they have chosen another way to respond?”
Part II. Exploration
Think of a time… Ask students to reflect on two experiences when they did, and did not stand up in a situation related to the topic.
Decide for yourself. Have students identify a situation where <name the key concept, i.e., the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, spotlight effect> plays a role in how someone acts.
- “When do you think it’s important to stand up and speak out?”
- “When do you think it’s a good idea not to stand up and speak out?”
Part III. Making Decisions and Taking Action Action
Develop Effective Strategies. Identify and label each obstacle to action. Then choose which are most relevant. Then explore the solutions outlined in the right hand column.
- “Where did you see this obstacle in the video or in real life?”
- Does the solution fit the obstacle?
Plan for the next challenge. Ask students to pick a realistic situation they want to address in the near future. This situation should contain the following elements:
- Describe a future situation and name it:
- Identify other obstacles to action.
- Outline your strategies for action.
Part IV. Advocacy
Your personal take-away
- “For you personally, what was the most interesting thing you learned today?”
- “Did anything surprise you?”
Teach back and spread the word “If you were to take just five minutes to tell a friend or family member how _______ works, what they can do to respond effectively upon encountering it?”
The Rationale behind our Major Activities
Our eight major activities were developed by Clint Wilkins and Bryan Dickerson and have been piloted in various forms and venues for the past three years. Each activity is based on the most recent and effective research in social psychology. Each activity is also intended to increase both a student’s awareness and change-making skills. Additionally, our activities have been constructed and ordered in such a way that they scaffold and reinforce each other synergistically.
Our activities are designed to fit into regular classroom environment, in after-school programs and in youth development organizations and can be “mixed and matched” as need be by the instructor. Our original lessons were designed for high-schools students and college undergraduates, and we are now adapting our materials for middle-school age and eventually for elementary-age students.
PART I. STIMULUS: UNCOVERING WHAT IS HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW
Objective of Part I: To introduce students to the powerful, controlling forces within situations and deepen their personal understanding on how individuals tend to react to them
What Would You Do? The teacher describes a challenging situation (such as the bystander effect). Students explore how they think they and others would typically act. (Generally people underestimate the power of social situations and assume that they would act in an ideal manner.)
Steps to learning:
- The teacher tells the story of a challenging situation.
- Students reflect on the story and use the worksheet to answer the following questions: “What do you think you would do in this situation”? and “What do you think most people would do”?
- They break into pairs or groups of three and discuss their answers and ideas
- The teacher then asks for a handful of responses from students to both questions without comment or evaluation.
Outcome: The students reveal their preconceived notions about human behavior in social situations and in so doing get warmed up and engaged for the next activity and the learning that will follow.
The major teaching techniques: “Idea generation” and generating probing questions that students will answer as the entire lesson unfolds.
Discover the Science of Situations. Students view a video that captures the key concepts for the entire lesson as well as the range of normal human responses to a particular kind of situation. Then, students are given verbal descriptions and a graphical handout illustrating how this phenomenon works, how we tend to react automatically and how this situation tends to affect individuals in a universal (or culturally bound) way, as well offering explanation of why this process is a normal part of human psychology. Presenters are given discussion questions to facilitate the internalization of the information.
Steps to learning:
- One way for the teacher to set up one of our videos (identified in the lesson) is by asking the students to imagine they are a “detective” who has the chance to make sense of the situation. (This builds empathy.)
- Students watch the video.
- The teacher asks a series of questions to the entire group in the following sequence: what happened; what were people thinking and feeling; why did they act the way they did; and how might they have responded differently.
Outcome. Many students will experience and “aha moment” whey they realize these forces are always going on around them—hidden, as it were, in plain view. As students become more conversant with the science of situations, they also become more adept at navigating challenging situations and connecting what they have learned to their own lives.
The major teaching techniques: Students learn how to draw out evidence from research and evidence from the lives of others. They also learn about the dynamics and processes behind common social situations and how normal it is for individuals to react so automatically.
PART II. EXPLORATION
Objective of Part II. Students connect their own emotional and personal reactions to challenging situations, and in the process convince themselves that they can do something positive in the face of these situations.
Think of a Time Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies in the face of challenging situations by thinking of a time in their lives when they both did and did not act in a way they would have preferred.
Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies when reacting to situations by reflecting on past experiences. Students then share these stories first with their partner(s). Then the presenter asks several students to share their stories with the class. Having students share a range of past experiences reveals how variable people react to challenging social situations, and shows that positive change is achievable, demonstrates that automatic tendencies are normal and builds empathy. We suggest that there is no more compelling way to encourage students to internalize that they have the potential to behave in their preferred manner than to reveal to them that they have already done so in the past.
Steps to learning:
- Students reflect on the two experiences (when they did, and did not act in a preferred way).
- They break into pairs or groups of three.
- They share their stories with each other.
- They report the entire group.
- The teacher affirms the responses, especially those where students took risks in exposing their vulnerabilities.
Outcome. Students learn that they naturally and instinctively possess the ability to respond effectively to challenging situations. They also see how most people, most of the time react automatically in the face of new and ambiguous situations.
The major teaching techniques: Drawing on evidence from the lives of others, appreciating how normal automatic responses can be, and the power of giving students the opportunity for formal and guided reflection.
Decide for Yourself. Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves that topic (bystander, peer pressure, discrimination) matters and is worthwhile for them to try to solve. This is an activity where you can pick up the pace, not break into groups and get quick responses that you write down on a flip chart or white board. Affirm the responses; don’t analyze them too much.)
Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves if: 1) the topic matters to them, 2) if they believe it is relevant to their lives, and 3) if they have a desire make a change in their skills, awareness, and tendencies in the face of the situation. Students share their ideas first with their partner(s) and then several students are asked to share their thoughts with the entire group.
We suggest that if students are allowed to decide for themselves on what is most important to their lives, as well as simultaneously appreciating the skills and awareness needed to begin to change, they will become intrinsically motivated to initiate and sustain positive change. Put another way, when students are presented with examples that positive change is possible, many will naturally attempt to do so if they are first given time to explore their own minds and internalize the information presented.
Steps:
- Students identify common situations (like the bystander effect) they have experienced in their own lives.
- They break into pairs or groups of three (optional).
- They entertain a series of open-ended question, especially around when it is
important to take action and when it is wise not to take action.
- The teacher writes down on a flip chart or white board various students’ ideas, using a “call and response” approach.
- The teacher does not need to tie it all together, but needs to communicate that the students’ ideas are valid and viable.
Outcome: Students put the issues in their own words, get buy-in and decide for themselves when it is important to get involved.
The major teaching techniques: Idea generation, self-reflection, and advocacy.
PART THREE: MAKING DECISIONS AND TAKING ACTION
Objective of Part III. To prepare students to know what they can do to overcome challenging situations
Develop Effective Strategies Students explore common barriers and obstacles to taking effective action and reflect on research-based solutions to them. Here, students are educated regarding common social obstacles to making change. This activity includes the following components:
- Verbal descriptions and a handout describing each obstacle and how it relates to the process as a whole.
- Information detailing when the obstacle most likely to occur.
- Examples of potential problematic consequences of reacting automatically to the obstacle.
- Explanations of solutions to each obstacle.
- Simplified ‘action items’ reframing the strategies presented in an easy-to-remember list format.
- Discussion questions to facilitate the internalization of the information.
Steps to learning:
- Teacher identifies and labels each obstacle from the worksheet and asks the following questions: Did you see this obstacle on the video? Have you seen it in real life?
- Teacher describes one solution on how to effectively overcome the obstacle.
- Students, as a class, discuss what ordinary people can do—step-by-step—in the face of these obstacles, exploring various actions and their potential outcomes and repercussions.
- This culminates in identifying a three-step action strategy: to stop, to step back and finally to decide.
Outcome. Students now have a concrete framework for understanding the obstacles and forces found in challenging situations. In addition they are equipped with the tools and strategies they need to take wise and effective action.
The major teaching techniques: Students learn how to understand evidence from research, how to build strategies for action.
Plan for the Next Challenge Armed with the strategic tools from the previous activity, students start visualizing more productive ways to deal with a specific upcoming challenging situation that matters to them. They do so by developing a concrete plan, setting personal goals and incorporating strategies for overcoming common obstacles—utilizing a worksheet to develop a concrete plan—involving the following tasks:
- Describe a future situation and name it:
- Identify other obstacles to action.
- Outline your strategies for action.
Students first share their plan with their partner(s) and then several students are asked to share their plan with the entire group. Additionally, creating this plan helps to reinforce in students the social forces affecting them and how, specifically, they go about actualizing their intentions and goals. The skills they develop from this rehearsal helps them to set similar goals around other related tendencies, and modify and revise their original plans as needed over time.
Steps:
1) Students break into groups of two or three and pick a realistic situation relevant to the topic (e.g., the bystander effect), one in which they want to address in their real lives in the near future.
2) They elaborate on the situation: “Who is there?” “What is going on?”
3) They describe what might happen if they went with their automatically tendency.
4) They decide on their personal goal for the situation: “How do you want to respond?”
5) They anticipate potential obstacles and strategize on how they would overcome them.
Outcome: This activity culminates in students’ making a public commitment to act on their intentions, which increases the likelihood that they will act in their preferred manner
The major teaching techniques: goal setting, envisioning both positive and negative outcomes and learning how to adapt to changes in plans.
PART IV. ADVOCACY
Objective: To consolidate and internalize students’ learning so that it becomes natural and compelling
Your Personal Take-away Students reflect on the key concept of the day from their own perspective. This is the simplest and most personal of all our activities, and includes the ideas they found the most interesting, useful, or surprising. This is intended to help consolidate what they have learned, center themselves and gain sense of closure to their experience. Several students are called upon to share with the group, but students do not pair off with their partner(s) in this activity.
This is also an activity where you can pick up the pace, not break into groups and get quick responses that you write down on a flip chart or white board. Affirm the responses; don’t elaborate.
Steps:
- Students break into pairs or groups of three.
- They identify the main things they have learned about themselves.
- They write this down the main things on their worksheet and share it with the group.
- The teacher captures the most memorable phrases on a white board or flip chart and emphasizes how creative the students are.
Outcome: Students get in touch with what motivates and energizes them to action. They just need to center themselves long enough to discover it. We want students to say to themselves, “I know what is the right thing to do in this particular situation. I know what is most important to me. Give me the opportunity to try this out in real time in real life.” This activity can be extraordinarily powerful.
The major teaching technique: Self-reflection.
Teach Back and Spread the Word. Once students develop effective change-making strategies, they are now prepared to share them with others. Students are encouraged to share what they have learned with others. We have students use a worksheet to identify: 1) one thing that they learned today that they feel would be of benefit to others, 2) one person they would like to share the information with, and then 3) sign the worksheet as a form of al/public commitment. This activity can be as short as five minutes, or can be as long as a full-semester service-learning project, applying, for example, the bystander lesson to counteract bullying in a local middle school.
Steps to learning:
- Students spend time with their “Spread the Word” worksheet and reflect upon what ideas they want to share with others.
- They identify the one person they most want to influence.
- They develop an argument that they feel will be persuasive.
- They then break into pairs or groups of thee and share with each other their “pitch.”
Outcome: Students find their voice and learn how to advocate for change. To quote Geoff Cohen, an expert on psychological interventions and a professor at Stanford University, we want students to feel that “I am valued, I belong, and I can do it!”
The major teaching technique: advocacy.
Final Thoughts. Throughout this series of activities, we do not persuade the students so much as they persuade themselves. No one tells them what they should or must do. No one tells them who they should be. Instead, students are merely presented with a series of activities, some of which may surprise them and cause them to see the world through a new set of eyes, as they discover things for themselves. When all is said and done, your students will take their insights and their strategies with them as they confront and overcome the challenging situations they will repeatedly encounter in their everyday lives.
A High School Principal’s Commentary on Our Activities
Clint Wilkins
The Overall Learning Process. You will take your “students” through a series of activities that have been carefully sequenced, engineered and are based on the most up-to-date research in social and cognitive psychology. Within each lesson are three clusters of activities.
· Part I. Stimulus. Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations. The first cluster of activities focuses on what is often “hidden in plain view”—the powerful and invisible dynamics behind our everyday social situations and what we take for granted about ourselves in the face of these situations.
· Part II. Exploration. The second cluster of activities is all about understanding ourselves in challenging situations. Students start by “thinking of a time” when they either did or did not stand up in a challenging situation and then explore scenarios when it would be wise not to confront a challenging situation.
· Part III. Making Decisions and Taking Action. Then they get to press what we call the “pause button,” where they replace automatic reactivity for more mindful reflection on various courses of action. Then they learn research-based practical skills and develop a step-by-step plan in anticipation of a future challenge.
· Part IV. Advocacy. Students distill down what they have learned and center
themselves about what is most important to them as change agents. Finally they advocate a course of action for others, whether it is a brief speech, a video or an essay. This last component we call “teaching back.”
The Learning Environment. In order for young people to learn how to become courageous and effective change agents, the learning environment needs to be safe. How else can young people reveal enough of themselves to take the emotional risks needed to venture out of their comfort zones so that they can stand up and speak out in the face of challenging situations?
Courage is the pivot point of standing up and speaking out. It is actually the essential element in bringing about positive social change. As Winston Churchill said, courage is “first of human qualities, as it is the quality that guarantees all others.” And as Maya Angelou said, “Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.”
Keep in mind that for some students, just talking in class is an act of courage. For others, being the first in their family to go to college is a sustained act of courage. Whatever the level of fear and apprehension, courage is the character trait that can be mobilized in driving students toward envisioning and planning for a better future.
Keep in mind, also, the following small pieces of advice. Respect your students as full partners in this journey of inquiry. You will surprise them. Don’t come into the intervention with a moral agenda. This, too, will surprise them. As the students delve deeper and deeper into the lesson, you will find them suspending their natural teenage urge to be skeptical of adults and a gain a greater sense of trust.
In addition, do not force any self-disclosure upon them, and be careful about embarrassing them publicly. Don’t put them on the spot. Strike the right tone—respectful and with seriousness of purpose but also light and intellectually playful. Scientific inquiry need not be dour and pedestrian, but rather is fun and creative. Use humor when appropriate, for this is a powerful way to engage them. And most of all, be kind. It goes along way.
PART I. UNCOVERING THE HIDDEN POWER OF SOCIAL SITUATIONS
Objective: To introduce students to the powerful, controlling forces within situations and deepen their personal understanding on how they tend to react
What Would You Do?
Student Outcome: for students to develop an informal hypothesis about how they would behave in a certain situation, an hypothesis that will be tested out in the next activity on the “science of situations.”
The Main Idea. to set the stage and the tone for the entire lesson by immediately engaging the students, having them experience their own, automatic reactions to a challenging situation. We want to underscore that this entire intervention is experiential and that the power comes from students’ level of engagement and commitment in it from start to finish.
Notes on the Learning Process. The teacher in this activity is a storyteller, painting a vivid verbal picture of the scene and calling on the students to exercise their imaginations in identifying with both the people and the situation. The teacher will not want to overstate the situation and certainly will not want to be passing judgment or in any way suggesting any preferred way of acting. The teacher will want to be engaging yet neutral.
Discover the Science of Situations
Student Outcome: students have an “aha” experience of uncovering and naming one or more of the universal psychological dynamics behind common social situations. If the lesson is about the bystander effect, for example, one such dynamic would be diffusion of responsibility—the more people on the scene the less likely you, or anyone else in the group will intervene. Another such dynamic would be group ignorance—which is essentially that you misread the intentions and the mood of the group itself and members within it.
The Main Idea. Young people will find both the videos and the content matter of this activity intrinsically fascinating. Keep in mind that they tend to be deeply appreciative of any activity that helps them to make sense of how the world around them works, and this is especially so when it comes to social situations that are new, ambiguous and challenging. These videos and the commentary of the experts about common situations are kind of like “experience in a bottle” for them. You will find that young people will view this activity as a way to gain greater social competence and also a way to spare them from unnecessary embarrassment. Think of this activity as providing young people with a “learning permit for life.”
In addition, young peoples’ behavior can vary greatly, depending on their circumstances or their moods, and by focusing on the power of situations we remove the judgment and the guilt often associated with their own behavior.
Notes on the Learning Process. We have found that the best way to teach “situation awareness” is through guided inquiry.
We start with a story – from a scientific experiment or from real life events – best captured on one of our short videos. Then we take teenagers through a series of exercises culminating in the articulation of the most prominent scientifically based social dynamics.
This activity also is the first step in helping young people start to recognize patterns of behavior they encounter all around them. This is particularly helpful, as they are able to stand back from the interpersonal drama that characterizes so much of a teenager’s world and see the big picture that tends to be obscured by their focus on who is in the in-group and who is in the out-group. By focusing on the situation and not the people as individuals, young people are introduced to one of the most important—and useful—of all the lessons in social psychology. It is called, rather inelegantly “the fundamental attribution error.”
The Major Take-away: The Element of Surprise. If the topic is the bystander effect, we want each student to say, “You mean to tell me that diffusion of responsibility was there all along—hidden in plain view—and I wasn’t aware of it? I just cracked the code!” This surprise should be a pleasurable experience.
PART II. EXPLORATION
Objective: To connect the challenging situation to their own lives and consider
Think of a Time
Student Outcome: for students to more deeply explore their own tendencies in the face of challenging situations.
The Main Idea. By helping young people to get in more in touch with their own lives, particularly when they either did or did not stand up or speak out in a challenging situation, we are setting the stage for the essence of this whole lesson: learning exactly how they can change themselves and the world around them. This is most powerfully done through gaining access to the stories we tell ourselves that explain how the world works and our roles within it, what psychologists call attributions.
This is particularly important for young people, as there is nothing more important to them than to figure out who they are (identity) and how and where they fit in (belonging).
Teenagers are fascinated with their own identity and the identity of others. They intuitively (and painfully) understand just how easily they can take on a variety of personas, depending on the circumstances. As William James wrote more than a century ago, “a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.”
Young people not only want to try on various identities and selves on for size; they crave it, especially under the aegis of sympathetic and supportive adults. Give them the opportunity to tell their story, free of fear of negative judgment and embarrassment, and they will seize it.
Story telling about their inner lives is one of the most powerful ways to gain access to this world and a great way to make the prior activity—the science of social situations— become more relevant and powerful. (I am particularly interested in the work of Tim Wilson, a professor at University of Virginia and how he uses core narratives and story editing to effect personal change.)
These two needs—identity and belonging—also form the foundation for taking actions that might involve social risk and go against grain, the topics of the next three activities.
Notes on the Learning Process. In small groups students tell each other their stories, bringing to the surface experiences in the past when they either did, or did not stand up in the face of a challenging situation. Then, they are given the opportunity (not mandatory) to share their stories with the larger group.
In bringing past events to the surface the participants see first hand how malleable and vulnerable they are to situational influences and also get in touch with tension that is at play inside them, between who they are, who they want to be and how others see them. This state of disequilibrium is often referred to as cognitive dissonance. Once this tension is felt, it begs to be resolved. Thus, this activity is a natural catalyst for the subsequent activities of this intervention, where we will systematically assist young people to resolve the dissonance that has just been triggered.
The Major Take-Away: to leave students confirming what they already knew about themselves—that they are capable of being both passive and proactive and this inconsistency is entirely normal, even expected. There is no stigma to standing on the sidelines.
Decide for Yourself
Student Outcome: to open students’ minds to alternative ways of responding to stressful situations and to pause long enough to replace automatic, knee-jerk reactions with more mindful responsiveness.
The Main Idea. Teenagers are natural contrarians and extraordinarily adept at exposing the inconsistencies in others’ behavior. They are very good at challenging both conventional wisdom and authority figures. Give them the opportunity to argue, and they will not disappoint. This is precisely what we want them to do in this activity: develop their own rationale for action. Giving them license to be argumentative is a powerful way to develop alternative ways to behave. This is nothing other than developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Give young people the freedom to hone these skills and you will find how energizing this activity can be.
The Learning Process. Working with a partner, we encourage students to articulate alternatives to the behavior of individuals in the opening activity. We emphasize such questions as:
- What are some common situations where the bystander effect might occur?
- When is it most important not to be a bystander?
- Why is it important to know about the bystander effect?
Whether they know it or not, they are pressing what we call the “pause button,” so they can access the space between stimulus and response. As they let their guards down, they are more ready to start entertaining new options. Furthermore, this activity is the logical next step in the process of resolving the cognitive dissonance that was set up in the prior activity, Think of a Time.
The Major Take-Away: Once they have explored options and been given the chance to articulate their own interpretations, students are now ready and eager (and primed) to take on real world problems and in particular to want tangible strategies, plans and tactics to make them more effective. (This take-away sets them up for the next two activities.)
PART III: MAKING DECISIONS AND TAKING ACTION
Develop Effective Strategies
Objective: To prepare students to know what they can do to overcome challenging situations
Student Outcome: to equip students with effective, research-based tools they need to take action.
The Main Idea. Young people are natural change makers and care passionately about changing the world for the better. They are idealists at heart. Give them the chance to express their idealism and act on it, however small the cause may be, and it can power a lifetime of social change. I know. I have lived it as a school principal and mentor to generations of young people. (I also know that ignoring or quashing this idealistic spirit can result in indifference and cynicism.)
This activity is the first step in building habits. Sociologists call it agency, and psychologists call it self-efficacy. Whatever we call it, courage is key.
Notes on the Learning Process. We go back to the original situation from the first activity, or take on another scenario, and explore what ordinary people can do to turn a challenging situation into something positive, with an emphasis on key decision points. For example, we systematically analyze dynamics of “the bystander effect,” entertaining a “cost-benefit” approach to change in the following steps:
As young people overcome the various barriers and entertain various solutions, their perspectives—whether about themselves or the world around them—the begin to shift their thinking and they start to see that small things can make a big difference if they have the right tools and the right tactics. This is called social leverage.
The Major Take-Away: being a changemaker is easier than you think; you just need to get the hang of it (this is the second major surprise).
Plan for the Next Challenge
Student Outcome. Create a personal goal and a strategy for effectively tackling a challenging situation.
The Main Idea. Armed with tools of change-making and a first taste in experiencing the power of courage, young people can then put these tools to use in imagining a more productive future for themselves and others. In this activity young people not only get to visualize a better future; they get very concrete in how they will get there. This activity meets another critical need of young people: to gain greater control their environment.
We need to give young people both the tools to put their sense of idealism into practice and the opportunity to exercise the courage of their convictions. We do this in small, incremental steps fueled by carefully calibrated doses of courage. This gives them a taste for positive change, that it is not so daunting and intimidating and off-putting to others as they may have initially feared. And once they get the taste, they will be encouraged (literally) to seek out the experience in the future and even sustain it.
Notes on the Learning Process. We start by giving students the chance to create a vision of a better future. This is called a “goal intention” in psychology. Then we give them the opportunity to create the steps they need to take in getting there. This is called an “implementation intention.”
They walk through various “if-then” scenarios, incorporating the tactics they have learned from the previous activity, such tools as our “powers of one, two and three,” and enlisting the courage they will need to put their intention into action.
The Major Take-Away: by breaking down the job of being a changemaker into steps toward a goal, a journey of discovery, a scientific experiment, then the whole experience is more rewarding, and students have more control and more fun in the process.
PART IV. ADVOCACY
Objective: To consolidate and internalize the learning so that it becomes natural and compelling
Your Personal Take-away
Student Outcome. to identify in concrete terms what motivates each student and reinforce the key lessons of the intervention.
The Main Idea. It is a vital need for teenagers to take seriously their own passions, to center themselves around what is most important to them and to affirm their own core values. This is the spark that can ignite action.
Notes on the Learning Process. We start by offering students the opportunity to identify the one thing they have learned about themselves through this intervention, the one thing they have learned about the power of situations, and the one thing they want to change in their school or community. In addition, we get from students the commitment to doing the right thing.
The Major Take-Away: students are centered and prepared for the final activity.
Teach Back and Spread the Word
Student Outcome: for students to find their voice and practice what they will teach others.
The Main Idea. Once young people have a platform and a voice, once they are given permission from the authority figures to “speak truth to power,” once they realize how pleasurable it is to “stand up and speak out,” once they have taught it to others, they will want to experience it again and again. This intervention is but the first step on a longer journey that will take place naturally and authentically whenever challenging situations present themselves.
Notes on the Learning Process. After planning and organizing thoughts, students put their thoughts in an order that will be persuasive. They work in small groups to rehearse and then some will present their “lesson” to the larger group. We believe that this activity is the culmination of students’ experience throughout the intervention of self-persuasion. Also, by making a public commitment their learning will be solidified further. Finally, this will be the culmination of their developing a new core narrative.
The Major Take-away. We want to leave them with another surprise: being a changemaker is a great experience. It is fun. It is something they are bursting at the seams to do. To quote Geoff Cohen, an expert on psychological interventions and a professor at Stanford University, “I am valued. I belong. I can do it!”
Final Thoughts. Throughout this lesson you will be surprised how often and how fundamentally we turn traditional learning on its ear. Here are a few examples. This kind of experiential learning doesn’t really take place during the lesson itself; it takes place afterwards and is far more internal than external. This lesson is more about uncovering insights and passion than about covering content in social psychology. In some ways students must go through a certain amount of unlearning before growth occurs.
By training high school students to teach our lessons, learning becomes that much more effective, for who better to guide them in to become more skillful and knowledgeable – and more positive – about their social lives and their social challenges. This is the power of peer learning.
And finally, when all is said and done, we as teachers do not persuade our students as much as they persuade themselves. No one has told them what they must, or should do. Instead, students are merely presented with a series of surprises they confronted and puzzles they were called upon to figure out for themselves. This is what social psychologists call self-persuasion, which is the most effective kind of persuasion of all.