Lesson #G4: Shifting Gears: Seeking Help/

Substituting Strategies Time:50 minutes

Overview

Richard Lerner’s research on goal management shows that people who seek help are more likely to reach their goals. Seeking helpis a particular skill that can be taught and grown in young people. However, just knowing that seeking help is a good idea is not enough.Through this lesson, young people will learn how to ask for helpby doing their research, taking the initiative, and showingthe person that they’re asking for helpthat they care. Young people will also learn that they are more likely to be successful by practicing good communication skills.

Substituting Strategies is another skill that relates to seeking help. It teaches young people how to pursue their goals, even when they face a challenge or difficulty.

In this lesson, young people will practice seeking help from others to reach their goals. Young people will also brainstorm ideas for substituting strategies when their initial plans for reaching their goals don’t go as expected.

Objectives

By participating in this lesson, young people will:

  1. Recognize seeking help and shifting gears as important strategiesfor reaching goals.
  2. Practice and identify a series of seeking help and shifting gears strategies.

Materials & Media

  • Materials to serve as the “Lily Pad” in the Lily Pad Activity (e.g., sheets of paper or newsprint, cardboard, carpet squares, or other materials)
  • Handout: Growth Grids (either “Self Reflection: GPS” or “Self Reflection: Shifting Gears”)
  • Handout: Destination Post Card
  • Handout: Clues for Seeking Help

Anchor Vocabulary

  • Skill — The ability to do something well and with expertise.
  • Initiative — The ability to start something before being reminded by others; to take action early in a situation.

Lesson Outline / Lesson Description
ENROLL
(6 min) / Opening
Framing and
Enrollment
Questions
(3 Min)
Framing
Questions:
Shifting
Gears
Growth Grid
(3 Min) / Build relationships with young people as they walk in the door by using Four at the Door! (Name, eyes, hand, heart)
Read the following quote:
“Don’t be shy about asking for help. It doesn’t make you weak. It only makes you wise.” Charles Dickens, author
Ask:
  • What does this quote mean to you?
  • Are you ever shy about asking for help? Why or Why not?
  • What we’re going to talk about today are strategies for seeking help when you need it.
Ask:
  • How many of you have ever heard the term “self-made man” (or woman)?
  • What do you think that means?
  • Many cultures around the world focus on the importance of community, family and collective teamwork to achieve important goals. Sometimes here in the U.S., the media can make it seem like successful people accomplish their greatest achievements all by themselves.
  • It turns out that SEEKING HELP is a crucial skill for achieving your goals.
  • It may not always be obvious, but many adults are more likely and willing to help you reach your goals than you realize.
  • While seeking help is not always an easy thing to do, it’s a skill you can become really good at, if you learn the skill and practice it. That’s exactly what we’re going to do today.

DISCUSSION
(8 min) / Facilitator: Pass out the Growth Grid titled: “Self Reflection: GPS” or “Self Reflection: Shifting Gears” to participants.
Say:
First, let’s take a look at the Growth Grid. There are two skills written here that we’ll focus on in today’s lesson: Substituting Strategies and Seeking Different Help (ask participants to identify these concepts on the Growth Grid).
Ask:
  • What do you think it means to Substitute Strategies? Have you ever had to do this before? For example, what happens if you find out mid-semester that you’re not doing as well in a difficult class as you hoped or you get sick and have to stay at home from school for a week?
  • What are some ways that canstay on track in spite of these setbacks? (Examples might include: getting extra help from a teacher after school, starting a study group, doing an extra credit assignment, asking a friend to pick up homework from teachers)?
  • Is it easy to substitute strategies when things don’t go as you planned? Why/Why not?
  • Okay let’s think for a moment about: Seeking Different Help. What do you think that this means?
Say:
  • Seeking different help means asking someone outside of our immediate circle or comfort zone to help us reach our goal.
  • For example: Let’s say you’re really interested in learning how to bake a chocolate cake and you know your immediate family members aren’t really great at baking.
  • Maybe your great-aunt or the neighbor down the street makes baked goods all the time. Who would be the most appropriate to ask for help in this scenario?
Ask:
  • What are some of the challenges with going outside of your comfort zone to seek different help?
Say:
  • It may not always be easy, but Substituting Strategies and Seeking Different Helpare both useful skills that can help us avoid getting stuck when we have trouble reaching our goals.
  • We are going to practice these two concepts in the next activity. It’s called “Lily Pads.”

EXPERIENCE
(16 min) / The Lily Pad Activity
Activity Instructions: (1 min)
Lily Pad Activity (9 min)
Processing Questions:
(5 min)
Optional Adaptions: / Lily Pad Activity Overview:
Say:
  • The goal of the activity is for all team members to cross a marked area – designated as the river – using only the “lily pads” (e.g., sheets of paper or newsprint, cardboard, carpet squares, or other materials) provided to them.
  • Participants will step from one pad to another until they all cross successfully. A successful team will get everyone across the river in as short a time as possible.
Facilitator’s Note: Be sure not to make the river too wide that the task becomes impossible given the number of players and lily pads. Pass out the “lily pads” to participants and divide the group into teams of 5 or 6 people.
Say:
•This area [identify designated space] is what we will call “the river.”
•All participants will cross from one side of the river to the other using only the lily pads that you’ve been provided.
•Once participants leave the riverbank, they are only allowed to step on the lily pads. Anyone who touches the river in any way will face one of two consequences: either the individual or the entire team will have to return to the riverbank and start over again [Facilitator will decide].
•Lily pads must remain in contact with a team member at all times, or they will be swept down the river and taken away from you. [Facilitators should stand in the middle of the river and be ready to grab the lily pads if teams forget to hold on to them.]
Give participants time to complete this activity.
Ask:
What Happened?
  • What strategies were necessary to succeed in this activity? (Examples may include: communication, careful planning, teamwork, one person acting as a coordinator, ideas from many people, practice before entering the river, helping other teammates when they got stuck)
•Which of these strategies was most difficult for each group? Why?
So What?
•How did you seek help from one another? Did anyone ask the fastest team for help?
•Where there times during the activity that you found yourselves needing to shift gears? How did you do that?
Now What?
•How is this activity similar to situations you faced before?
•What are some of the most important ideas to take away from this activity?
Optional Adaptions for the Lily Pad Activity:
  • Create greater difficultly by blindfolding participants or telling them that they can’t talk.
  • Give each participant a card with a character trait on it such as bossy, shy, mistrustful, mute, encouraging, etc. Ask them to keep the cards to themselves and to role-play these traits as they do the activity.

EXPERIENCE
(10min)
LEARN & LABEL, REVIEW, DEMONSTRATE / Handout/ Activity
Clues forSeeking Help
(5 min)
Review: Clues for Seeking Help Worksheet
(5 min) / Note to Facilitator: There aretwo options for setting up this activity. Option 2 may take a bit longer to discuss with participants because it requires them to recall previous conversations regarding sparks and finding a sparks champion.
Say:
•Now, let’s talk about strategies for seeking help in our everyday lives.
•(Option1)Take a look at the Destination Postcards that you filled out earlier. [Hand out completed Destination Postcards Worksheets to participants]. Pick one of the goals that you have already set for yourself. Can you think of a few ways that you would ask for help to accomplish this goal?
OR …
Ask:
•(Option 2) Do you remember when we talked about sparks? How many of you have identified your spark champion? For those of you haven’t,do you know how to begin finding a spark champion? For those of you who have, do you know how to find a differentchampion? How would you ask an adult to help you grow your sparks and be your sparks champion?
Pass out the Clues for Seeking Help Handout.
Say:
  • Let’s consider a few ideas for seeking help by reviewing the tips in this handout. What are some of the clues that you see here? Where is the best place to start? Have you ever tried any of these suggestions for reaching other goals? What were the results?
  • Take a few minutes to answer the “Key Questions to Consider” on the handout. (Give participants some time to fill out the worksheet individually)

EXPERIENCE
(7 min) / Activity: Let’s stroll!
(4 min)
Processing Questions:
(3 min) / Activity: Let’s Stroll!
Say:
  • Now, I’d like each of you to pair up with someone else and take a four-minute stroll together (e.g., around the room, down the hall, along the perimeter of the meeting space).
  • While you’re walking, both of you are going to briefly share your plans for “seeking help” with each other by sharing your answers to the first four questions in the“Clues for Seeking Help” handout.
  • Then, you’ll each take turns brainstorming ideas to help your partner reach her/his goals. Remember: your goal is to come up with your best suggestions.
  • At the end of your walk. We’ll all come back together again and talk about how the activity went.
Give participants 4 minutes to “Walk and Talk”.
Say:
What happened?
  • What were some of the ideas that you came up with?
So What?
  • Let’s talk about questions 5 and 6 on the handout. After you’ve identified the person that you’re going to ask for help, what are some ways to start the conversation and build a relationship with her or him?
  • How would you grab someone’s attention and make her or him interested in helping you?
Now What?
  • How do you plan on using the suggestions that you received today?

CELEBRATE
(3 min) / Chair Challenge / Introduce Chair Challenge
Say:
  • To celebrate I’ve got a little challenge for you.
  • I need one volunteer.
  • I want you to lift this chair over your headusing just one hand. The other hand has to be touching the floor at all times.
  • I want everyone else to cheer him/her on as loud as you can.
  • You’ve got one minute. Go!
Allow one minute to pass. Tell student that he/she has the option of asking for help.
Invite one volunteer to come up and help. Tell the volunteer he/she can only use one finger.
Allow one minute for the volunteers to figure it out.
If they don’t get it, give them a hint about how to do it.
(Helper should put his/her one finger on the back of the chair to counterbalance it.)
Give them a round of applause.
Say:
  • Sometimes help from others can go a long way. As you can see, every little bit counts!

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Last Updated:5/24/12 G4: Shifting Gears: Seeking Help/ Substituting Strategies