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- Personhood
Curriculum
- 4th
Grade
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- Priority & Balance in
Life-Rules
- Lesson Plan
- ph-g4-5
Teaching Goals
- Introduce priority & balance in
Life-Rules, such as "School work has priority over play,"
Etc.
- Improve their ability to take control of their
lives themselves.
Teacher Prep
Class Time
Relevance
Links to the need for
Self-Actualization.
It is possible to make Life-Rules that are not
good ones. This lesson teaches how one kind of mistake can happen,
and how to avoid it. Therefore, it helps YOU do a better job of
controlling YOUR own life.
- Presentation
-
- Project Transparency "Unbalanced
Life-Rules."
We have learned about Life Goals and about Life
Rules to help us reach our Life Goals. Here are two Life-Goals and
two Life-Rules some of you might choose for yourself.
-
Life-Goal:
Get a good education.
- This is a good goal because you want to be
smart, and able to do things. Then you and other people will
respect you more.
- Life-Rule:
School work before play.
-
Life-Goal:
Have fun and relaxation.
- This is a good goal, because if you don't
take time to play, but worked all the time, you would likely
have too much stress in your life. That is bad for your health
and for your happiness.
- Life-Rule:
Play before schoolwork.
-
The way the two Life-Rules (above) are written, they are
contradictory. In order to solve this problem, we need to think
about Priority and Balance.
A good life needs Priority and
Balance. Extremes may not be good.
If people study and work hard
ALL THE TIME, and never relax or play, it is bad for
them.
If people play and "goof off"
ALL THE TIME, and never study, it is bad for
them.
- Thus, the Life-Rules above are NOT good
ones.
Project transparency "Balanced
Life-Rules."
We can have Life Rules to help us find a good
balance of schoolwork and play time. The top-level and sub-Life-Rules
given below will help. Here is a better Life-Rule that can be used in
many situations. It helps lead to prioritizing and balancing your
life. That helps you to control your life BETTER! We need to give the
schoolwork the priority, that is, it comes first, and it gets the
most effort until it is done. Here is a better Life-Rule:
Life-Rule:
"Work takes priority
over play"
- Sub-LIFE -RULE:
Work is started
first.
-
- Sub-LIFE -RULE:
IF I have been working hard
for quite a while, THEN I should take a
break and play for a short while, to relax my mind and body.
- (NOTE: Working too hard and for too long
usually makes the work harder and takes even longer. Your brain
sort of "shuts down." A reasonable play-break can help you do a
better job. This is true at any age, even 66!)
-
- Sub-LIFE-RULE:
I don't have to do a better job than
does everyone else in the world.
- (In other words don't KILL
YOURSELF by overdoing the task!)
- To do a super-perfect job usually
requires a very great deal of time, and is not needed.
-
- Sub-LIFE -RULE:
IF I have
finished my work, and have done a good
job, THEN it is time to quit work, and to play.
- (This Life-Rule gives a clear way to
tell when to stop the work.)
-
EXAMPLE - - - Start with schoolwork first. After working
for a good period of time, take relative short breaks to
relax or play, so you won't "burn out." Then return to
work.
These rules show Priority, by starting the
work first. Also, you work a good period of time, say an hour,
before taking a break. Balance is shown when
we take a break for say 15 minutes.
- On this schedule, 80% of the time is spent on
work. That shows you are giving it the highest
priority.
REMEMBER! When applying Life-Rules, you need to be
really
honest. If you aren't, then you are
cheating, and the Life-Rules are worthless! Dishonesty will
contribute to trashing your
life.
You can use a timer to set the times you will
allow for study and for play intervals.
Be HONEST!
-
We can have many Life-Goals, and we should! You
may at times have a situation where there are two Life-Goals you
would like to work towards, but for some reason you can't work on
both of them at the same time. You have to make a
choice
of which one to work on. You have to set priority.
-
- These choices can be very tough. Sometimes you
just have to flip a coin. Sometimes a little thought will show you
the best choice.
-
- What are some of the things you might think
about to help you make such a choice? When I call on
you:
- Toss out a new idea if you have
one
- Say something to carry someone else's idea
farther along, improving on it
- You can ask a question
- Say you agree or disagree, telling
why
- Select students to respond. Keep
participation record.
Below are some of this writer's thoughts on how
to make a good choice. Warning! When making a choice, take all of
these into account and any others that you may think of. It is not
good to use just one.
- Use logical thinking, and ignore emotions.
- Which one is the most important over your
WHOLE LIFE? Pick that one.
- Example: Being educated is more important
than being good in sports.
- Choose the one that will create the greatest
self-respect and the greatest respect from other
people.
- Choose the one that has to be completed first
or soon.
- Business before pleasure.
- This is so important that it is being
repeated! Use logical
thinking, and ignore emotions.
Your practice in
doing this helps your brain develop.
-
Periodically
- (Teacher)
-
When homework is issued, tell students to use
the Life-Rules that give homework priority, balanced
with short play breaks. Use their timer, if they have
one.
-
- At every opportunity, explicitly present
relevancy of the material being taught. Try to tie that work back
to basic internal motivation, such as the desire to be respected,
the desire to become highly capable. See these essays:
How
We Build Ourselves and
Respect:
How to get
it.
-
- Privately ask individual students how the
system is working for them. If they are using it with good results
and have a good feeling about it, ask if they would tell the class
about their experience, then call on them in class to do
so.
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As of: 23 Mar '03