Psychological Corollary

A successful person will seek additional success in new situations.

Lesson Objective

Students will identify two reasons why successful people seek new successes. For example, a person who has succeeded in one position may seek promotion because she wants new responsibilities or because she hopes to learn new skills.

Social Behaviors

This lesson shows students that successful people:

• Seek new experiences are ambitious
• Explain their problems

Social Vocabulary

• responsibility experience
• organized

Other Vocabulary

• assembly line promoted
• production secretary

Suggested Lesson Plans

Introduction

• Introduce vocabulary.

Group Use of Student Workbook

• Ask students to brainstorm a list of reasons why Toni wanted to become a manager; compare this to the list provided after Scene 1.
• Ask students to hypothesize why Toni couldn't just be satisfied with her job as assembly line leader for the rest of her career.
• Ask students to read Scene 2 of the play.
• Ask students how Toni handled disappointment in not getting the promotion to manager, and have students compare this to the ways Carrie, Jack. and Barbara handled failure in Unit 6, Lesson 3.
• Have students brainstorm a list of reasons why Toni got the job at Canco; compare this to the list provided at the end of Scene 2
• Ask students' opinions about the way in which Toni handled her writing problem (i.e., telling Ms. Franco).
• Do you think this was a good thing to do?
• What if Ms. Franco hadn't been so nice; should Toni have revealed her problem in that case?
• Should Toni have told Ms. Franco about a problem she didn't have a solution for (i.e., in this case, Toni could use a recording device to compensate for her disability; what if she had, as yet, found no way to compensate)?
• Pretend that Toni would not have to do any writing in the new job; if that were the case, should Toni tell Ms. Franco about her writing problem?
• Discuss the pros and cons of sharing information about disabilities with prospective employers.

Follow - Up

• Ask students how they can apply skills and job experiences they already have (e.g., babysitting, working at fast-food restaurants and the like) to jobs they hope to get in the future.
• Ask students if any job that could lead to another job can really be seen as a "dead end." (Note that it's a dead end only if a person never goes on to find other work. Also, note that a job that is "dead end" for one person might be ideal and certainly is socially valuable for another person.)

Behavior Development Activity

To encourage students to seek new experiences:

• Divide the class into three small groups, each of which will research one of the following topics:
• New athletic activities
• New foods
• New hobbies
• First, ask each group to brainstorm (for its topic) three experiences none of the group members has had. For example:
• The athletics group might identify hang gliding, windsurfing, and rugby.
• The new foods group might identify tasting Afghan, Vietnamese, and Hunan foods.
• The new hobbies group might identify furniture refinish-ing, vegetable gardening, or stamp collecting.
• Have each group select the new experience its members would consider most intriguing.
• Take students to the library; groups should conduct research to determine steps they could take to try out the new experience.
• Groups should report results of their research to the class; if feasible, the class might try out the new experience as a group (e.g., by taking a field trip to an ethnic restaurant).

Review

• Ask students to identify two reasons why people like to experience new kinds of success (e.g., to learn new things, to seek new responsibilities, and to feel increasingly competent).

Homework (Optional)

• Have students:
• Select one new (and inexpensive) activity they would like to experience.
• Determine the steps they would take to get the experience.
• Share this information with classmates.
• If possible, have students actually try out these new experiences and report back to the class.