Students will begin their second unit from Second Step in their history classes this week. The unit is Developing a Positive Sense of Self, and will culminate the week of December 16th with the following performance tasks per grade level:
6th grade: Using Your Guiding Principles. Your child will complete a story in which they use their guiding principles to make a decision and resolve a challenging situation. Ask your child to describe their story and discuss the decision they made. Ask how they plan to include guiding principles in future decision-making.
7th grade: Who Will You Become? Your child will describe what they can do now to connect their self-concept to who they want to be in the future. Ask your child what they can start doing now to become the person they want to be in the future. Ask them why it’s important to see things in themselves that they feel good about.
8th grade: Your Confidence-Building Plan. Your child will create a plan for building confidence in an area of their choice. Tell your child about a time when you successfully increased your own confidence. Ask them to describe their plan for building confidence. Ask how you can help them with their plan.
Unit 2 lessons are designed to teach students more about themselves and others while giving them opportunities to develop a positive sense of self. Each age group encounters slightly different material, aligned to their developmental stage.
- In Grade 6, students learn about guiding principles, or the things that are most important to them, and identify some of their own guiding principles. Sixth-graders also learn strategies for making decisions that are aligned with their guiding principles and practice making decisions they feel good about.
- The lessons in Grade 7 teach students about self-concept, or the way they see and think about themselves, including factors that shape or influence their self-concept. Students identify and describe multiple parts of their self-concept and learn how self-concept can change over time. Toward the end of Unit 2, seventh-graders discuss their future self- concepts and envision who they want to become.
- In Grade 8, students explore the concept of agency, which is the power to make and act on their own decisions, and learn how to recognize where they have agency in life. Students also learn about confidence, or the belief in their ability to do something, and where it comes from. They then evaluate strategies for building confidence and select ones that will work best for them.
