Self-Awareness: "The ability to know how you fit into the community. It is also the ability to figure out what the community means to you and what you can do to impact the community."
This resource provides definitions and activities to develop the core SEL competency of self-awareness through community and generosity.
You don’t have to adopt a new curriculum. Learning to Give's standards-aligned lessons inspire students to use their hearts and minds to impact their community and themselves.
Students learn from examples of people who have experienced a struggle and used surrounding resources to make something better for themselves and the people around them.
Students read about Rosa Parks and evaluate how her protest of an unjust and unfair situation was philanthropic in nature.
Learners define justice, kindness, peace, and tolerance and describe the importance of these attributes of a civil society. They look for examples in the media and brainstorm how they can promote these attributes in their school, community, and the world.
Learners will define community, analyze it according to the five themes of geography, and share ideas to make an impact on their community.
Students look at how they typically spend a free day and see what that same free day would look like when it is infused with philanthropy. Students plan a free day, substituting their usual routine with activities that give back.
Students see the importance of working together for the common good.
The classroom is matched up with another classroom (or any group of people) in the country or the world. The students communicate by letter or e-mail and compare characteristics of place such as methods of transportation, weather, resources, and culture.
Students write to pen pals in a different community and discuss ideas related to a service project. For example, the pen pals may plan and monitor a canned-good donation project.
Students brainstorm community needs and how they may be addressed. They explore why taking action is good for the giver, the person receiving the gift, and the community. They make a plan and take action to address a community need related to hunger or homelessness.
Students discover that corporations often give generously to support community causes, programs, and issues. They look and listen for names of companies that donate or sponsor efforts to make a better world and research the local companies that give back.
In this unit of three lessons, we build a caring classroom culture using literature and movie clips to spark discussions. In lesson one students learn about mindfulness and gratitude to reduce anxiety. In lesson two, they learn how to listen, act, and show empathy in difficult situations.
The learners will view works of art that advocate for social change. They will recognize that art can influence social change. The learners will select an issue of human rights and create a work of art that represents the issue.
The purpose of this lesson is to explore the contributions artists make for the common good. We learn how their work is supported by philanthropy and nonproft organizations that assure we have access to art.
The purpose of this lesson is to show that artists are a valuable part of a community and to explore how they contribute to the public good.
Students will understand that you find poetry everywhere: lyrics to songs, commercials and rap. They will also realize that themes of giving are often found in poetry. Students will write poems with giving themes. Sharing their poems is considered an act of generosity.
Students will find and discuss examples of philanthropy in poems and quotations. They will define and design statements on the theme of philanthropy using the poetic conventions of metaphor, simile, and personification.
In this country, understanding our civic responsibility and duty to vote is vital to citizenship. Teaching our students at the earliest ages about voting and using their voice prepares them to see each person as a valued member of society with an equal vote and an important voice.
