ENGLISH

TEACHER SUPPORT UNIT 12

The Rules We Live By

English Teacher Support Unit 12  

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The Rules We Live By

Before we start…… You have now done eleven TSUs with your students and you have probably noticed a great number of changes in their level of English. Their confidence must certainly have grown through your efforts and most students must be participating actively in discussions in class. The Twelfth TSU This TSU is about a topic that all young people are familiar with - rules. We usually understand rules in terms of obedience. Young people are often on the receiving end of adult advice. Adolescents, in particular, are very sensitive to being told what to do. This can lead to a lot of conflict in the family and in school. In this TSU we explore the idea of rules, and broaden the discussion to include those that are clearly stated, such as school rules, and those that are not so obvious but all of us follow, such as customs and practices we follow in the family. There are a lot of ideas for discussion with your students and as you go through the activities, you will certainly come up with more of your own.

Activity - 1: Norms and rules in family and society

Your students are at an age when they are no longer children. But they are not adults either. This is something they struggle with on a daily basis at this time in their lives. On one hand, they think of themselves as adults who are in control of their lives and are able to make decisions. On the other hand, they are unsure of themselves and need adult support and advice. They both invite and resent adult interference and guidance. Allowing students to express what they feel, especially talking about what they find annoying, such as the unreasonable behaviour of adults, is a great way of generating discussion in the class. Here are some activities you can do.

We can assume that they will be able to: • Participate in classroom discussions

• Can ask and respond to simple questions

• Can frame responses in full sentences

• Can read and comprehend simple stories and texts

• Appreciate poems

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Say to your students: Young people often feel that older people don't respect them.

• Do you feel this way? • What are the ways in which you expect them to respect you ? Can you write them down?

You can ask students to work in groups. They can share with each other some incidents when they thought an adult was being unfair. After they share an experience, they can summarise what they found annoying in one line. E.g. Adults never listen to what young people say. Each group will have their own list of statements. Make sure to reassure them that you will not be angry with what they say. Tell them that now that they have spoken about how they are treated unfairly, they should think about their own behaviour towards others. Here are some ideas you can use. Say to your students:

• Now let us turn to respecting people of your own age or who are younger to you. Have you noticed ways in which students disrespect each other in your class and in your school? Write down the ways in which students can be unkind to each other.

• Can you write down a few instances when the lack of respect was so extreme that you were upset? Write down what you saw, who was involved, how the incident ended? Do you think you could have done something about it? If so, what? You can discuss this with a friend or a group of friends. One person in the group can write down what is being said.

• After you have documented a few instances, think about what you can do to prevent things like this from happening in your school. You can come up with a list of rules. Then share your rules with the rest of the class and ask your teacher or class monitor to help you come up with a list of class rules.

When you conducted this activity, did you find it difficult to listen to the students' complaints about adults? Do make a note about what you experienced, how you felt, etc.

Did it work?

interesting difficult boring

What is the focus of this activity?................................................................

Did you make any modifications or try out variations?.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Activity - 2: Laws, Rules and Customs

Have a discussion with the students about the difference between rules and law. You can use a social science textbook to help you with this. A simple definition of this is that laws and rules define how people should behave. The difference is that laws are backed by the authority of the government of the land. Every person is required by the government to follow laws. The consequence of breaking a law is punishment by the government, which could range from paying a fine, to imprisonment, to even more extreme consequences such as the death penalty.

Rules, however, are not as strict as laws and can be made for small groups of people, such as classroom rules, rules for the school and even rules made by parents at home. The penalty for breaking a rule is enforced in the small group, not by the government.

Customs are accepted ways of behaviour of a particular group of people. They are not written codes of conduct and you cannot be put into jail not following them. But if you are part of a group and you don't follow the code of behaviour of the members of the group, they can throw you out of their group and you can become friendless.

Here are some examples of laws you can give the students.

No parent must send their children to school till the age of 14.

No child below the age of 14 can be employed.

The minimum age for marriage for girls is 18.

Did you know?

There is a cultural practice among shopkeepers in Chettinad in Southern India. A shopkeeper cannot say no to a customer. If a shopkeeper does not have sugar, he tells the customer he has jaggery). Do you know of a similar practice elsewhere / in your area?

English Teacher Support Unit 12  

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Ask students to work in groups and write down the laws, rules and customs that affect them. Draw the table below on the board and ask students to copy it in their notebooks. Then ask them to put their statements in the correct columns according to whether they are laws or rules or customs.

Allow them to discuss the statements. You can also ask them to refer to their social science textbooks. Walk around the class and help them articulate their statements.

Here are some more examples with which you can start them off.

Driving on the right-hand side of the road.

Wearing a uniform to school.

Touching the feet of elders.

Caning of students by the teacher is prohibited.

Every child must be registered at birth.

Did it work?

interesting difficult boring

Laws Rules Customs

What is the focus of this activity?................................................................

Did you make any modifications or try out variations?.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Activity - 3: The consequences of breaking rules

Once the students have filled in the table above, tell them that you are going to have a discussion about the statements above. Here are some questions to help you conduct the discussion.

• What are some rules, laws and customs that people often break?

Allow students to come up with examples.

Follow up each example with questions like: Why do they do this? Do you think it is all right for them to do this? Is this a silly rule or custom? What would happen to them if they broke it?

• Ask students to think of situations when they themselves would break rules. Give them an example: e.g. someone in the family needs to be taken to the hospital. It is an emergency, so you hire a taxi or rickshaw. You ask the driver to pay no attention to the traffic lights and drive straight to the hospital. The driver doesn't stop at red lights. Is this all right?

Ask students to create a role play for the situations they come up with. In each of the situations they are pulled up by a person in authority. You can ask them to designate one student to be this person. The rest of group should come up with reasons to convince the person about why they broke the rule.

• Think of some safety rules. E.g. make sure to drink enough water especially on hot days. If oil in a vessel on the stove starts burning don't put out the flames with water. Instead if it is a small fire, cover the vessel with a lid. If it is bigger, use sand or mud from outside the house. Ask the students to think of other safety rules. Ask them to think of a situation when a safety rule was broken and to recount what happened on that occasion.

Did it work?

interesting difficult boring

What is the focus of this activity?................................................................

Did you make any modifications or try out variations?.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Activity - 4: The Making of Rules

Your students have now discussed various aspects of rules - thinking about rules that exist, how they feel about rules, how they are affected by them, etc. Now ask them to work in groups and do the following activities. They could then present their conclusions to the class.

• If you and a group of your friends were to create a secret society, why would you want to form a secret society, what would you call it, what rules would you create for it? What rituals would you have?

For instance, to be a part of a group called the Free Mason Society, members have to take a pledge not to harm anyone. They must not harm people either in the larger society or people who belong to the Free Masons group. They must also support each other.

• Give a few instances where rules have been broken. Ask the students to discuss the punishment that should be given for breaking the particular rule. For example:

- a student did not wear her sports uniform on the day she is supposed to wear it to school.

- a student rides on the footboard of a bus.

-a man rides a scooter with several people as passengers - his old mother, and his two young children.

• Ask students: If you could change slightly or get rid of three rules in the following areas, which would you change? Which would you get rid of?

-at home

-in the village

-at school

-in society

• Many rules exist in school and society. Ask students which ones they think are crucial for people to follow? How would you make sure that people follow them?

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Did it work?

interesting difficult boring

Textbook related activity: Poetry

1. Poem : The Noble Nature

Small creatures are as important as larger ones. Can you find stories where big and small creatures are compared in this way? In a group, you can make a list of them and tell a few stories to the class.

2. Comparing Poems: ‘Home and Love’ and “The Character of a Happy Life”.

Ask the students: What are some of the similarities ? Ask the students to write in groups and tell you. Write them on the board. (The poem is about Love and happiness, it talks about how good homes are, where we spend our happiest moments, etc.).

3. Finding similar themes in Poems: ‘Wander – Thirst’ and “Alexander Selkirk”.

In these two poems, the poets say that man need a friend to enjoy the life, whether it may be the Sun, Star, Sky, Wind etc. Ask the students: can you find the lines in each poem which tell you this?

What is the focus of this activity?................................................................

Did you make any modifications or try out variations?.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................