Vision Boards

Lesson 2. Vision Boards, is a part of the Character Education program for my daughter's Grade 8 class.

Lesson 1 was on Goal Setting.

The children were asked to bring in supplies to make Vision Boards. Unfortunately many of the children did not come prepared so we lost some time looking for scissors, glue and so on. I was grading them based on cooperation, participation and completion, but now I will also be including preparation! I will not be grading them based on the quality of the work as I feel the work is subjective.

I brought in many magazines for the kids and asked them to bring in their own. I also suggested they search the Internet for any pictures that they wanted to use.

I explained to the children that the pictures could be of anything that they want to attract into their lives. Anything that symbolizes for them what they want their life to be about.

I also said that they weren’t limited to pictures, they could draw and write on them as well.

Many children still asked me if it was okay to include this or that; I gently brought them back to the point that it is about what is important and meaningful to them.

Of course there were some children (boys) that only used pictures of surfing and girls in bikinis; I think they were trying to be cool!

I made suggestions like:

Is there a specific place that you want to visit where you can surf?

What kind of profession are you interested in that would help pay for your travels and love of surfing?

I then suggested they also include these types of things on their Vision Boards.

I walked around the room observing and commenting. I looked through some of the magazines and when I saw something interesting I asked aloud if someone might be interested in that particular image.

In our next class they will be finishing up this lesson. Also, if we have time I am going to share with them some of the goals of their classmates as per Lesson 1.

Overall, I have to say that the mood in the classroom was definitely inspiring. As I watched them reflect and talk about their vision for their lives, I got the sense that some of them may never have thought about it before. I really felt like they were excited about the possibilities.

An easy way to begin to live a better life--now!

Well, just to give you a brief update. We did finish the lesson and all of the kids presented their Vision Boards to the class.

As they presented, I asked them questions, one child had a big peace sign and wanted peace in the world. I asked her how we could have more peace in the world and she said to stop the war in Iraq, I then asked her how she could directly contribute to having more peace in the world. We talked about bringing peace to the world by starting with our own relationships. I really like this theme and may explore it further for our next lesson together.

Quite a few of the children had pictures that represented a greener and cleaner environment, we discussed how they could help the environment by turning off the fans and lights in their classrooms when no one is in them. They could ask their parents to turn off their cars while waiting for them in the parking lot and so on.

All in all it went well and I am starting to think about the next lesson!

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