Lesson 4 - Resources and Networks
Lesson Plan
This section introduces students to the array of resources that people use to avoid cascading and downward economic mobility. It then asks students to consider the resources that they have access to in their own lives. Students read biographical stories that highlight different types of resources - such as money, time, friends, family, emotional support, childcare, and unconditional love - and begin to see how not everyone has the same social and economic resources and how collective resources can fill gaps when individual ones cannot.
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- Identify types of resources and categorize them as economic, social, or emotional
- Assess one's own personal resources and those of one's family and community
- Create an artistic representation of resources and networks
- What kinds of resources do you have as an individual? As a member of a family, a group, or a community?
- Where do resources come from? How do people create networks? How can people make up for resources when they are missing some?
- What does it take to use resources (asking for help, strong relationships, hard work, comfort in uncertainty, etc.)?
- Biographical stories for C.Y. and Sharon
- Resource mapping worksheet
- Resources: We often think of money and material things as resources, but many other assets can be used to help get through a difficult time and thrive. These include personal relationships, group memberships, emotional maturity, spiritual practices, and more.
- Networks: We are connected to many people through different experiences and social ties. Sometimes those ties stem from friendship, others through kinship, school, or work. They can be formal or informal and are sustained through give and take.
Everyone has access to a different collection of resources. These depend on wealth, but also who one knows (their network), where they live, cultural or ethnic heritage and traditions, and education or training.
In small groups, students should read one of the two biographical stories. As they read, they should consider what challenges the person faced and what resources they used to make it through. Then, each student should complete the resource mapping worksheet for the subject of the biographical story and for themselves. Discuss as a class the following questions: Do students have similar resources or different ones? Why might different places have different resources?
Now, help students to work together to figure out what resources they have as a class and community. Place sheets of paper on the wall for each kind of resource. Students can walk around the room and add to those sheets anything that is a resource that they use or that they could offer. When done, discuss the collective resources as a class. What does the class have a lot of? Can everyone access these resources, or are they restricted?
There is a lot more to a fulfilling life than economic success. For this exercise, have students produce an artistic representation of all the resources that someone has assembled in their life. That person could be C.Y., Sharon, another story from the Cascading Lives website, a famous figure, or a fictional character. Draw a horizontal line with one end marking their birth and the other today.
Along the way put dots to signify important events. Now, either with art supplies or images cut out of magazines, add representations of the resources in their life.
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley