Safety & Person-Centered Focus
Introduction (1-2 min)
Introduce this week’s theme:
Check out the list of World Music from around the world!
Music is an important part of every culture and this week we will be listening to music from all over the world and learning about how every culture uses music for similar things.
Introduce this week’s Skill Builder: Making Decisions
Making decisions is an important life skill. Knowing how to make decisions helps us be independent and design a life we enjoy in the present AND the future. This week we’ll practice different aspects of making decisions.
Voting Tomorrow (optional) (2-3 min)
Are there any more questions in your group about voting tomorrow? Use this link to answer any questions about voting tomorrow. (registrar of voters California)
Today happens to be observance of Dia de los Muertos (4-5 min)
Share what you know about this day.
Learn some more together with this page
Videos (optional)
Theme Activity--Songs for Ritual (10-12 min)
Songs are often used for rituals—hear one or more of these examples. What feelings do they evoke?
- Faith activities--Oakland interfaith choir
- Life transitions--Armenian Wedding
- Somber or grave occasions--Bagpipe for soldier
What rituals do you associate with certain songs
- If you participate in religious services, what kinds of songs go with that?
- What songs do you think of for weddings, graduations, funerals, or coming-of-age events?
- Are there songs that just your own family sings for certain events?
Cultural songs often rely on traditional instruments. Are any of these instruments familiar?
Instruments from different countries
<body break>
(5-10 min) Show and Share: your favorite singer. Which of their songs is your favorite? Have you ever seen that person in concert? How long have you been a fan?
Skill Builder 01 (10-15 min)
Person-Centered-Thinking: Preferences, Wants and Needs
To make good decisions we need to know more about ourselves. The next exercise will help you learn how you choose things.
Review the defintions.
Like/dislike
Preferences are reactions to things. When we like or dislike something, that’s a preference. We can usually tolerate it if our preferences aren’t met.
Preference is often a fast reaction, but sometimes we learn to like or dislike something after we have an experience with it.
Which do you like better in these examples?
- Smells: chocolate or coffee?
- Colors: purple or yellow?
- Tastes: sweet or salty?
Want/don’t want
Wanting something means we want to add it our life or our experience. It’s different from a preference because we want to acquire it or get rid of it. When our desires don’t come true we may be unhappy but we can survive even if we fell disappointed or frustrated.
- Name one thing you want to add to your life or get rid of.
Affects my survival or well-being
Needs are not like preferences or wants. If our basic needs aren’t met, we don’t survive, or we become unhealthy or unsafe.
Which of the things below are NEEDS?
- Clothes—candy—water—video games—safe place to sleep—Cable TV
PRESENTERS: while doing the survey, emphasize that needs are things we need to survive and stay healthy.
Use your sheet at home to write your own answers. Look at the items pictured and listed in this worksheet together.
For each item decide if it is a preference, a desire, or a need, then mark if you like/want it or not.
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 02 (10+ min)
Safety vs Risk
Lots of everyday activities can be dangerous.
For each activity answer the questions:
- What good results do we normally get when we do these things?
- What bad things MIGHT happen when we do these things?
- How likely is a good result?
- How likely is a bad result?
When a bad result is very UNLIKELY, and the good result is something we really want, we usually decide the risk is worth it, or is a reasonable risk.
Use the worksheet as a guide for deciding if an activity is worth the risk. Are these risks reasonable?
- Riding a bicycle with headphones on
- Diving from the high dive if you are a good swimmer
- Riding a scary roller coaster
- Walking alone in a city at night
- Trying a new food that you've never had
- Buying food from a stranger in a parking lot
Review/Planning
What did we learn? What are we doing this afternoon?
