Content

Warm up with ice breaker circle: 

Prompt 1: If you could teleport into any fictional story, what would it be and why? 

Prompt 2: (for 6th graders): If you could change one thing about the way most adults think of kids your age, what would it be? 

(for 7-8 graders): If you could change one thing about the culture of this school, what would it be? 

Materials/Notes

Circle Guidelines posted visibly

Content

Taking Responsibility for School Climate and Safety

Watch the first video “Become an Upstander” as a class.

Use the following questions to guide a brief (3-5 min) Popcorn discussion:

• What’s the difference between a “BYSTANDER” and an “UPSTANDER”?
• Does the information in this video match up with your experience?
• When do you think witnesses to bullying have a responsibility to speak up or interrupt?

Watch the second video, “The Importance of Bystander Power”

Lead a brief (3-5 min) Popcorn discussion using this prompt:

• Does this video make you think differently about your definition of POWER? What does this video say about every person’s power—and maybe responsibility—to stand up for someone else who is getting targeted?

Hand out Student Journals: “Take 3 minutes to write a response to one of the following prompts. You won’t have to share what you write, but you will be able to if you choose.”

• Write about a time when you (or another person) stood up for someone who was getting picked on. What made you/ them decide to act or speak up?
• Write a response (either agree or disagree and explain) to this statement: “You are always using your power, in every moment, to influence the world around you, just by being there. Your choice is not WHETHER you have power; it’s HOW are you using it.”

Allow 3 minutes for students to write. Ask for volunteers to share back and discuss with the time remaining

Materials/Notes

Projector and Reliable Internet

PowerPoint Slide #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StPGbbBBrI0 (1 min 39 sec)

PowerPoint Slide #3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JegGjYtstyw (3 min 21 sec)

PowerPoint Slide #4

Content

Holding ourselves Accountable to our Goals

Organize students into small groups of 3-5. Make sure they all have their journals and, if available, their Goals worksheet from week 1. 

“Let’s think back to the first week of this class together. We all set down some goals for how we wanted to impact the school’s climate. First, review your goals and write a check mark next to any you achieved. Then, on your own and in your journal, write a brief response to the following questions: 

1. Did you hold yourself accountable for working on the goals you set out? If yes, describe what that looked like; if not, describe what it might have looked like. 
2. Did anyone else hold you accountable for those goals? 
3. How does our ability to achieve (or at least work toward) goals change when someone else is checking on our progress?” 

Allow 5 minutes for writing. 

Next, in your groups, pass your Goal sheet to your right; read through your neighbor’s list of goals. Pick one or two goals that aren’t checked and write down some brief, CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions as to how your neighbor might still achieve the goal or adjust it to feel more achievable. 5 minutes 

With any remaining time, invite a Popcorn discussion about their answers to the Reflective Writing, or some of their thoughts on this kind of accountability. 

Materials/Notes

Goals Handout from Lesson 1

Slide #6 with prompts.

Student journals

Content

Freedom and Responsibility

Choose one of the quotes from Lesson 7 Slides 7 and 8; read or have a student read aloud.

Continuum Activity: Have students stand up and tell them: “If you basically agree with the statement, move to the left side of the room (my left), and if you basically disagree, move to the right side. For now, no straddling the fence in the middle.”

Allow 1 minute to safely move around the room, then pick someone from the AGREE side to say a few words about a) how they understand the quote, and b) why they chose this side. Repeat for the DISAGREE side. Then ask for a definition of the word “responsible.” Think back to Lesson 6, when you thought of someone who takes responsibility for you and your needs. How is that different from someone “holding you responsible for” something?

Additional questions:

• Both quotes imply a relationship between Freedom and Responsibility. When your own Freedom limits someone else's, how much responsibility do you have toward that person? (For example, one person's freedom to use offensive language versus another person's freedom from hearing speech that is hurtful or threatening?)
• Why is taking responsibility sometimes frightening?

PowerPoint Slides #7-8

Content

Making Amends

Create small groups of 3 or 4. Give students the following scenario: “Someone broke your phone; they gave you a sincere apology, but you still have a broken phone.”

In your group:
Think about the idea of “Making Amends” which is “doing your best to mend (repair) what was broken,” and then Chat about the difference between making an apology and making amends.

• What is the value of an apology vs repairing or replacing the damaged phone?
• How might the conflict end differently if
  • a) the person was punished by the principal for breaking your phone, or
  • b) the person tried to make amends to you in some way?
• In which case do you think the person is more “accountable?”
  • Have a volunteer from your group report back to the whole class.

Wrap up with a whole-class Popcorn discussion about what it means to be accountable, to whom and for what.

For example, if a person gets punished for breaking a rule, they’re being held accountable to the rules, whereas if a person makes amends to someone they harmed, they’re being accountable to that person.

Making Amends Homework Challenge

Time: 3 min to assign

A Homework Challenge doesn't earn points and isn’t graded. It’s a challenge for students to do on their own because it will benefit them. They choose whether to do it or not.

Challenge: “Think of someone you may have been unkind to or harmed, even in a small way, and make amends to that person. If that’s not possible, or it may put you in an unsafe situation, imagine what it would be like to make amends to that person, what it might cost and what it might gain, and write, draw or record yourself speaking for a few minutes about it. You can share about it next class with me or the whole class if you want.”

Make sure to allow 5-8 minutes to debrief at the top of the next class, perhaps as a circle prompt, with any of the following questions:

1. What was/is the hardest part about trying to repair harm that we’ve done to a relationship?
2. Was the issue that you chose to repair something that’s been bugging you for a while? Does it feel different or take up as much mental energy now that you’ve tried to address it?