Actions of Acceptance To the teacher: activity.

the following framing and activity will prepare

students to participate in the third and final whole school acceptance Please use the following script/outline to guide your fifth hour. Please allow the last 25 minutes of your class for this portion. After C lunch ends, your student facilitator will report to your room to guide your students through a discussion and activity. Please provide support to your student leader, and foster the participation of your students. (see ice breaker: you may want students to take off their shoes now and line them up somewhere in the room so that they air out a bit by the time you do the ice breaker. Clear an area of the room for them to put their shoes) Framing: This year, we have had two whole school sessions centered on the theme of acceptance. On the first day of school, you heard Eric Thomas speak and participated in activities designed to get you thinking about what it means to be accepting of others. The second trimester, you watched the Mosaic Theater Group perform and engaged in activities intended to prompt you to think about obstacles that we encounter in accepting others. Today, we will be taking action to demonstrate what it looks like to practice acceptance. Ultimately, we as a whole class will create a Public Service announcement in video form that relates to acceptance. --PSAs are messages spread by any type of media (newspapers, TV,
radio, internet, etc) intended to raise awareness and change public attitudes and behavior towards a social issue. (write this on your board)

Acceptance is not just a racial issue; as you will see in the PSA examples, stereotypes and prejudice exists for all kinds of groups:

men, women, people with disabilities, people of various sexual orientations, teenagers, etc. We can design our PSA to address acceptance in any fashion we see fit. To the teacher: This would be a good time to have students look at some examples of public service announcements. Turn your TVs to channel 81 and there will be three examples looping. They are each under a minute. After they view the examples, discuss briefly. You might ask them what the message was in each. How did each create awareness on a topic? What behaviors/attitudes did each intend to change or influence? How did each example appeal to the emotion of the viewer?

Ice Breaker: Walk in Someone Elses Shoes The following is an ice breaker designed to get students to think about seeing things from someone elses point of view. Students shoes should be piled or placed somewhere in the room. This activity might be
challenging for some students as they will be grossed out by wearing someone elses shoes. Talk them through it in relationship to how difficult it is to understand others perspectives from our own place.

1. Have students put on a pair of shoes that is not theirs and attempt to walk around the room. 2. Have students stand still and attempt to do ten jumping jacks in place in their new shoes. 3. Have students resume their seats or sit in a circle. Ask the following questions: a. How did it feel to walk in your new shoes?

b. How do these feelings relate to how hard it is to figuratively walk in someone elses shoes? c. Is it important to try to see things from others point of you in real life? Why or why not? d. How does it help you to empathize with others? e. How does it help others to empathize with them?

If You Really Knew Me (MTV program, 40 minutes) This portion begins at 12:10 when all facilitators are in place in fifth hours: Intro program: The MTV program follows The Challenge Day program to record what happens when teenagers confront the stereotypes and prejudices that affect them on a daily basis. The teens discuss very personal aspects of their lives, and the goal of the program is to wake people up to the power each of us has to positively impact our school and community. As we watch the program, we should reflect upon our own behaviors, and hopefully something we see will inspire ideas for our PSA. Tune in to channel 81 to watch the program.

PROGRAM BEGINS AT 12:15 Follow up questions: (12:55-1:10) 1. Do you relate to any of the students featured in the episode? If yes, explain. 2. Why might we shy away from or judge people before we really get to know them?

3. Are there people at school who may be different than how you perceive them? Explain. 4. Are you friends with someone who you once negatively judged as very different from you? If yes, do you think your judgments could be getting in the way of you forming meaningful friendships? (feel free to add others, but be mindful of the time) CREATING THE PSA: 1. Say, Acceptance is a very broad idea. We have to create a PSA that sends a message related to acceptance. Lets brainstorm some more specific ideas related to the theme that could serve as the platform for our PSA. (write ideas on the board-students might say, bullying, rumors, social media, etc.) 2. Vote as a class on which idea you want to feature in your PSA (These two steps should take 5-7 minutes) 3. Now that you have a focus, decide as a class what you want the theme or take away message to be pertaining to your central idea. Ex. Think before you speak (or tweet), treat others the way you would want to be treated, etc. 4. Decide what you will use to communicate your message. Will you use: a. Music b. Still images c. Video d. Text

5. How will you incorporate these elements? Will you use video or images recorded in the classroom, will you use video/images from the internet, or will you use a combination? 6. If you want to use music, what music would be most effective? (10-15 minutes for steps 3-6) 7. Plot out frames for your PSA. Decide what should go in each one. You might want to decide how you will begin and how you want it to end before you decide what goes in between the two. If your PSA will include only or mostly a video that you shoot, you will have fewer frames. (5-10 minutes) 8. Start the process of gathering the materials you will include in your PSA. (20-25 minutes) 9. Edit and produce the PSA on the computer (30-35 minutes) 10. Upload finished project to the YouTube channel (fhsfalcondiversity@gmail.com PW: fhsfalcon13) 11. Use the teachers name as the title for the video (ex. Deledda5th)