CARING

ARE YOU A CARING PERSON?

• Are you sensitive to people's feelings?
• Do you treat people with kindness and generosity?
• Do you think about how your actions will affect others?
• Are you ever mean or hurtful?
• Do you help people in need?
• Always remember: we become caring people by doing caring things.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

If you are using the video, ask the first two questions before viewing.

1. Agree or disagree: Some people say that kids are selfish and self-absorbed and don't care about anything but themselves.
2. How do you know if someone cares about you?
3. At the beginning of his blog, Shiv says that he realized that he had the power to make someone happy by showing someone he cared. Do you think everyone has that power?
4. How do you feel when people show that they really care about you? How do you feel when you do something really caring for someone else?
5. What makes people care about others?
6. What do you think the world would look like if nobody cared about anybody else?
7. Agree or disagree: It's uncool to be a caring person. Why or why not?
8. Who is someone in your life you think is very caring? How does he or she demonstrate that? How are you similar or different from that person?
9. What motivates you to give to others?
10. One student says that sometimes when you give you don't get anything out of it. Do you agree?
11. What are some things you've done alone or as a group that you feel improved the life of someone else? How did it make you feel?
12. In Nick's story, he says that when you help someone, you help yourself. What does he mean? Do you agree? How?
13. Kassandra said her story about starting "Good Night, Sleep Tight" all started with a book she read about foster care. Can you think of something you have read that gives you an idea of how to help others?
14. Do you think the average 12-year-old could do the kinds of things Nick and Kassandra have done, or are they just special cases?
15. Can you choose to be a caring person, or do you have to be born that way?
16. Shiv says that even if we don't start out as caring people, we become caring by doing caring things. What does he mean? Do you agree? Can you think of examples of how that would work?  This also makes a good writing assignment.)
17. Do you consider yourself a caring person? In what ways?
18. What does caring have to do with the quality of your character?

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WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

1. Describe the most caring thing anyone has ever done for you. How did that make you feel? What effect did that have on you?
2. Share a time when you or someone you know made a difference in someone's life by showing that you (or he/she) cared? How did it make you feel?
3. Nick turned a difficult challenge in his life into an opportunity to help others. Can you think of someone in your life who has done the same thing? What was that person's challenge and how did he or she turn it into an opportunity to give back?
4. Research someone in history who dedicated his or her life to helping others. Write about when they lived, and give some examples of how they improved the world through their dedication.
5. Watch a movie or a TV program, and then write about how the actions of the characters demonstrated either caring or uncaring. Write a critique of an uncaring character, suggesting how he or she could have been a more caring person.
6. Imagine that you have just inherited $20,000 and you want to spend it all to help other people. What would you do with the money, and why? What effect would it have on the people you would be helping?

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STUDENT ACTIVITIES

1. What does it mean to be a caring person? Have your class brainstorm a list of dos and don'ts for being caring. Ask for specific examples of each behavior they identify. Compare their list with the quiz questions above. Hang the list up on the wall as a reminder.
2. Take some of the behavioral examples from activity #1, above, and turn them into role-play situations. First, have them role-play the uncaring behavior, and then the caring behavior. Have the group analyze each of the role-plays.
3. Have students form small groups and come up with ideas similar to Kassandra's that address a need in their community. Then develop a step-by-step plan of how they might turn that idea into a reality. Give your project a name and a mission statement that starts with "Our project's goal is to show we care by ______________________."
4. Bring in (or have your students bring in) articles from newspapers and magazines describing situations that show caring and uncaring actions on the part of individuals, groups or governments. Discuss these situations. In what ways do they demonstrate either caring or uncaring? Perhaps write a group letter to the people involved.
5. Have your students visit the Opportunities for Action page to find opportunities to become involved in community service projects and other activities that involve acts of caring.