Becoming Awesome!: Life Lessons from the World's Greatest Leaders

By April Lara

Becoming Awesome! Life Lessons from the World's Greatest Leaders explores effective social emotional learning skills to help teens become contributing members of our communities and prepare teens for a lifetime of success. Think, reflect and respond strategy questions for each chapter help educators navigate discussion and

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781641374521

Book preview

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Becoming Awesome!

Becoming Awesome!

Life Lessons from the World’s Greatest Leaders

April Lara

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2020 April Lara

All rights reserved.

Becoming Awesome!

Life Lessons from the World’s Greatest Leaders

ISBN

978-1-64137-450-7 Paperback

978-1-64137-451-4 Kindle Ebook

978-1-64137-452-1 Ebook

This book is dedicated to:

My husband, Dan Lara, for his patience, love and understanding.

Contents

My Vision

How to Use This Book

Introduction

Leader Summary

Section 1.

Self-Awareness

Chapter 1.

Love Yourself More

Chapter 2.

Recognize Personal Qualities

Chapter 3.

Clarify Values

Chapter 4.

Stay Open to Life Experiences

Section 2.

Self-Management

Chapter 5.

Identify Emotions

Chapter 6.

Practice Empathy and Compassion

Chapter 7.

Be Cognizant of Comparisons

Chapter 8.

Stay in the Gratitude Spirit

Chapter 9.

Keep a Positive Attitude

Chapter 10.

Power Down to Power Up

Section 3.

Social Awareness

Chapter 11.

Perspective Taking

Chapter 12.

Learning to Compromise

Chapter 13.

Listen

Chapter 14.

Respect Others

Chapter 15.

Get Your Inner Circle Right

Section 4.

Responsible Behaviors

Chapter 16.

Set Clearly Stated Goals

Chapter 17.

Be a Decision Maker

Chapter 18.

Make Honorable Choices

Chapter 19.

Confront Peer Pressure

Section 5.

Self-Improvement

Chapter 20.

Making Mistakes

Chapter 21.

Challenge Your Comfort Zone

Chapter 22.

Believe in Your Self Confidence

Section 6.

Take Responsibility for Your Life

Chapter 23.

Ask!

Chapter 24.

Quit Blaming

Chapter 25.

Take Criticism Well

Now What!

Acknowledgments

Teacher Appendix

Appendix

My Vision

My vision for any teen who reads Becoming Awesome! Life Lessons from the World’s Greatest Leaders:

A child is inspired to take the steps to become a leading community citizen who is loved and appreciated citywide.

A teenage boy who is raised in the violent inner city will rise up to lead a community overtaken by gangs and shootings, reversing the trend that so many of his family and friends are exposed to.

In a third world country, there is a young child growing up with a dirt floor not exposed to worldwide thinkers, who steps up to become a leader of their community.

A young girl denied an education or forced into a child marriage takes the lead in her own life.

Most importantly, any teenager can visualize achieving their greatest potential by believing they have the ability to make a difference and influence change, no matter what circumstance they find themselves in—at school, home, or in their communities.

I envision a world full of purposeful, compassionate, committed, and high-integrity emerging citizens who are deeply respected and admired in our world.

Malala Yousafzai—the young courageous Pakistani girl shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for her activism and stood up for education—taught us that, One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.¹

May any educator who uses this book be the teacher to fulfill their legacy of being the one to make a difference. And may the child who learns from this book create a ripple bringing positive change to the world.

---

1 (Yousafzai 2016 (reprint))

How to Use This Book

Below are tips and suggestions to help you and your students get the most out of Becoming Awesome! Life Lessons from the World’s Greatest Leaders.

1. The structure of the book is broken into six social emotional learning sections:

• Self-Awareness

• Self-Management

• Social Awareness

• Responsible Behaviors

• Self-Improvement

• Take Responsibility for Your life

2. The book does not have to be completed in order; however, it is recommended that all readers start with the first section, Self-Awareness.

3. Each chapter within the section highlights a key success principle or life lesson that will help teens develop social emotional intelligence.

4. Student reflection at the end of each chapter provides an opportunity for readers to think, reflect, and respond.

5. Students do not need to complete every question. As an educator, pick and choose the ones that work best for your classroom learning.

6. Use this book as a reader with other teachers. There are history, language arts, art, and civics among other lessons that can be gleaned from this book.

7. Having students reflect and complete assignments in a journal will deepen the learning process.

8. Use the group process model, small work groups, pairs, or individual work. Be cognizant that some teens may be uncomfortable discussing some of the topics in a larger group setting or among each other.

9. This book focuses on life skill fundamentals of social emotional learning, so it is age appropriate from sixth grade through twelfth grade. Book two Becoming More Awesome! is in the works, and will expand on Social Emotional Learning topics to tackle more complex situations that teens and young adults are bound to experience.

10. For additional worksheets and online activities, go to www.becomingawesome.net. We will continually update our website with supplemental lesson plans, worksheets, and resources.

Teachers

Use for filler work, gap day, homeroom, classroom, or in conjunction with lessons taught in class.

A Lexile wordlist is included in the Teacher Appendix of the book. Words are listed by chapter.

Student reflection questions are based on evidence-based Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recommendations.

Counselors

Use this book for leadership classes or self-esteem clubs.

Students

Take your time going through the student reflection.

Some reflection questions you will be able to answer right away; others, you will want to put more thought into. As you continue to grow, you will become more self-aware, so revisit assignments as often as you like.

Introduction

Youth Are Our Greatest Resource

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

—Margaret Meade, an author and popular mass media speaker in the 1960s and ‘70s

There are many examples of significant change happening when an upheaval of young adults took the lead and said enough, demanding reform for the betterment of mankind. Social change begins with young people. Consider the following stories.

2018

Take, for example, the March for Our Lives campaign, a student-led demonstration to end school shootings sparked by the tragedy at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Emma González, the #NeverAgain organizer, stood in silence for six minutes and twenty seconds—the same amount of time it took a teenage gunman to rampage through her school with an AR-15 and murder seventeen people.

González advised the thousands and thousands who gathered in the Washington Mall to, Fight for your lives before it is someone else’s job. She asked teens to take a more active role in supporting tighter gun control.

A new reality settled into these young teens’ lives, interrupted by unimaginable violence. Their experience was a rite of passage ritual that no youth should have to experience in their life. They questioned who was protecting them; after all, this was not the first school where a mass shooting targeting children had happened. Emotions flared even more when young teens were given a lack of useful solutions by bureaucrats—like only using clear backpacks or arming teachers with guns.

The #NeverAgain movement is an example of young people using their voice to take a grassroots approach by assuming individual responsibility, much like antiwar, civil rights, and fair voting rights advocates. Student participants worked from the ground up, getting a lot of people to do little things that brought a voice to and concern with the world around them. They found a way to empower other teens to actively participate in creating their future, instead of waiting for someone else to take responsibility.

Here are some facts:

• Within three days, #NeverAgain had 35,000 Facebook followers, today the list has grown to over 150,000.

• A multicity bus Tour to Change was planned and included seventy-five stops in a sixty-day, twenty-state tour targeting younger voters to register and vote for legislators that favored gun reform.

• More than two million people participated in the March for our Lives campaign, a student-led demonstration to prevent gun violence.²

The Washington Post called their work a stunning victory against the NRA. The students raised enough awareness to create change in the Florida legislature. On March 9, 2018, the Florida governor signed a bill into law that included increased funding for school security and raised the required age to buy a gun from eighteen to twenty-one. The governor commended the young adults, saying, To the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, you made your voices heard. You didn’t let up and you fought until there was change.³ The #NeverAgain movement was a well-organized, countrywide example of how empowered teens took responsibility, built momentum, and ultimately made a difference.

Organizers like those behind the #NeverAgain movement are evidence that the younger generation is aware of and concerned with the world around them. Teens today are more interested than ever in finding a way to actively participate in creating their future instead of waiting for someone else to take responsibility—before it is too late.

1960

In 1960, just over one hundred years after the Civil War, the United States still struggled to coexist as one human race. Despite their freedom, progress was slow for African Americans. The passage of Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws were post-Civil War measures enacted in seventeen Southern states beginning in 1876 as part of the reconstruction effort. These laws were the rule of the land between 1876 and the 1960s, and were billed as a solution to the problem of how to bring the two races together—declaring separate but equal conditions for each race.

Laws were passed to create an equal way of life for all; however, in reality things were far from equal. What these laws actually did was severely restrict African Americans’ rights and freedoms. For African Americans, it was illegal to attend segregated schools, sit at a lunch counter, use the same water fountain, or even wait in the same waiting room as white people. Because their skin color was black, they could not enjoy the same swimming pool or catch the latest movie release at the local theater.

Still, it was a small group of committed college students that created an infectious uprising of like-minded participants and brought the needed momentum to make change at whites only lunch counters. It happened in 1960. The lunch counter sit-in movement started out as a tiny crusade in Greensboro, North Carolina, and eventually expanded to include protests at segregated lunch counters in thirteen states in the South.

The Greensboro Four, as they became known, were African American college students that sat down at the lunch counter and ordered a cup of coffee, only to be refused service. As they waited and waited for service, the young men were faced with disparaging jeers, taunted by both customers and employees. The hateful treatment did not stop the students from staying put until the store closed.

The next day, more students showed up. Again they were refused service, and again, though they were heckled by frustrated patrons and staff members and had ketchup, mustard, and sugar poured on them by white angry mobs, they ignored the mindless patrons by reading books and completing their homework—and they did not leave until the store closed.

By the fourth day, over three hundred African American college students came to the sit-in protest. The sit-ins ultimately led to a change in the policy at Woolworth’s and other popular lunch counters. By the end of the summer, five months into the sit-in campaign, lunch counters no longer displayed Whites Only signs.⁴

History Repeats Itself

We can draw many parallels between history and current events. History repeats itself, and with the new cycle of situations, we can look back and learn. There in the baton, is the time capsule that has been passed to us. There have been generations of leaders who responded in unique ways to the betterment of our world.

History teaches us about mistakes and successes, giving an opportunity to produce a better outcome. A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them, are the words used by forty-third US President George W. Bush when he dedicated the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.⁵

There is a legacy of great leaders who