Teaching Guide: Acting On Your Values

This material is from the teaching guide
for the video “Acting On Your Values“
in the 12-part DVD series THE POWER OF CHOICE

While today’s teens are often characterized as the me generation, caring only about themselves, conversations with many of these young people reveal quite a different story. As one student in Cleveland puts it, “My father always says that we’re the lost generation, but I keep telling him, `We’re the future, and if we’re the lost generation, then the future’s gonna be lost.’ And that pushes me because I don’t want to be the lost generation.”

In this program, comedian/youth counselor Michael Pritchard, talks with students in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Minneapolis, to discover how knowing what we value can guide us in making choices that are right for us. It is a candid exploration of the values on which today’s teens base their lives, where those values come from, and what meaning they have, as teenagers grow toward adulthood.

 

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

1. To stimulate young people to think critically about their behaviors and beliefs.
2. To explore the benefits of knowing what our own values are.
3. To discover how our values can serve as a tool for making good choices.
4. To reveal how living by our values gives us power over our lives and elevates our self-esteem.

This material is from the teaching guide
for the video “Acting On Your Values“
in the 12-part DVD series THE POWER OF CHOICE

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Questions to ask before showing the video.

1. If you were given a million dollars, what would you do with it? What does your choice reveal about your values?

2. What does knowing your values have to do with making choices?

3. Where do your values come from?

Questions to ask after showing the video.

4. In Pritchard’s dilemma over what to do about the lost wallet at Christmas time, what values are in conflict? What choice would you make?

5. The ROTC cadet who gave up her boyfriend indicated that she felt she had betrayed her values. Do you think that’s true? What values were in conflict for her? What would you have said to her if she were your friend? If you had to choose between your career and loyalty to someone who needs you, how would you make that choice?

6. Can you think of an incident when you had values in conflict? How do you (did you) choose between them?

7. Have you ever made choices that were at odds with your values? Were you aware of it at the time? What made you realize there was a contradiction? Can you explain why it happened?

8. How do you feel when you act contrary to your values? Have these feelings ever led you to reevaluate your choices?

9. One girl in the program said that after temporarily abandoning her values, she had to learn to like herself again. Explain.

10. Who are your heroes and/or role models, and which of your values do they embody?

11. How clear are you about what your values are? How did you come to realize what your values are?

12. Has anything ever happened that made you question or change your values? What happened, and what was your response? How do you feel about the outcome?

13. Have any of your values changed over the years? Have certain ones remained unchanged? What is the difference between those that change and those that don’t?

14. Do the values of one generation become outdated in the next?

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

1. Write about a person whom you admire. Characterize that person’s values and give examples of how he or she lived up to these values.

2. Write a list of questions to ask your parents about their values and the relationship between those values and their life choices. In so doing, explore any contradictions you may perceive between your parents’ stated values and their actions.

3. Realistically describe the values that you live by, whether or not you are proud of them. For each of these values give an example of how you put it into practice.

4. Think of a book or a movie or a TV show in which a fictional character had a values conflict. Describe the situation. What are the values in question, and how is the conflict resolved?

This material is from the teaching guide
for the video “Acting On Your Values“
in the 12-part DVD series THE POWER OF CHOICE

 

GROUP ACTIVITIES

1. Divide the class into small groups. Each group runs a hospital emergency room. On a night when only one surgeon is available three cases arrive at the same time, each requiring immediate surgery. They are: a teenage boy knifed in a gang fight, a grandmother with heart trouble, and a 40-year-old illegal alien who was hit by a car while running from the border patrol. List the factors you need to consider in deciding who to operate on first, prioritize these factors, then decide the order in which the patients will go into surgery. Then rejoin the class and explain how you arrived at your decision.

2. Divide the class into small groups. Each group runs an ad agency that may have to lay off lot of people, including one member of your group, because business is slow. Your company has been offered a contract from a biotechnology laboratory to give germ warfare a good image. If you accept it, every one of you will keep your job. First, decide whether to accept the contract. If you turn it down, decide which one of you gets laid off. Then return to your class, report the results of your meeting, and explain your decision(s) in terms of the values in question.