Proactivity

Definition: Taking initiative. I get started ahead of time.

Motto: I think and then I act. I am the designer of my life.

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The Strengths Spotlight Podcast Series: Listen to the Institute of Positive Education descriptors of the strengths that include integration strategies.

What it Looks Like and How to Encourage:

• Teaching how to plan

• Reflecting and setting goals

• Championing ideation and seeing possibilities

• Thinking before acting as in “ideas to action” and “think it, do it” (CL)

• Promote a language around preparation and ownership of actions for personal responsibility. Be less reactive to circumstances by using the language of what you choose to do... not to what is happening to you. Also, speak in terms of knowing and owning what the outcomes (consequences) might be in response to one's choices.

• Situational analysis (Teachable Moments)

Character Lab lists Decision Making as a standalone Character Strength. In my humble opinion, I don't see a direct correlation between decision-making to any of the VIA Character Strengths as almost all of the Character Lab strengths versions do.

I see decision-making as more of a process and skill that connects to several Character Strengths. This being said, Character Lab puts forth their usual "how to encourage/nurture in others" that is so helpful in supporting the teaching of the Character Strengths. Here is their write-up for decision-making. Understand that I am inserting it here under proactivity noting that it connects to all the strengths when we engage them. It is of course helpful to be intentional and thoughtful and proactive (when possible) in how we make decisions.

Model It. When you make a decision, explain how you came to that conclusion. For possible options, spell out the pros and cons, their importance, and how likely they are to happen. Make sure that the risks you take are worth the rewards they could deliver. Talk about what would be the best- and worst-case scenarios—and which scenario is most likely: “If we go out, we will probably enjoy a sunny afternoon at the beach together, but there’s also a small chance we’ll get caught in rain or traffic. If we stay home, we’ll almost certainly order pizza, turn on a movie, and stare at our phones.”

Celebrate It. Applaud processes, not outcomes. When options are risky, good decisions can have bad results. Show that you’re tolerant of risk, as long as the reasons for taking risks are sound: “That didn’t work out, but you made the right call! I would have made the same decision.”

Enable It. Give young people a chance to think about all sides of a decision, and avoid leading questions so they follow your hunch. Instead of “We should…”, try “Which should…”. When making a decision with friends or family, assign someone to play devil’s advocate. Have groups argue for different positions. Making the case for alternatives reveals blinders and biases in our own thinking.

Teacher Strategies to Personally Strengthen Being Proactive:

• Grow your awareness of your strengths by making them more visible. Depending upon your learning style and preferred modality, choose tools from your instructional toolkit to apply to yourself. Examples: Audio Recording (have a friend interview you to record your very own "strengths podcast"|Concept Mapping|Outlining|Sketchnoting. Find ways to show how you combine strengths in some situations while also connecting to your talents/abilities, skills, interests, and values.

• Look to leverage apps, websites, browser extensions, and other tools to be more purposefully productive.

• Start with the CL construct of model, celebrate and enable to develop some strategies.

Character Lab Proactivity Teaching Strategies and Tips: How to offer age-appropriate versions of the strategies? Note: There are dozens and dozens of tips from Character Lab. These choices are filtered for elementary school and practicality to bring this strength into the culture of one's classroom.

• Hard Choices Made Easier

• The Peak-End Rule

• Think It, Do It

• Use WOOP to set goals supported by Character Strengths. (WOOP Worksheet from Character Lab. A more scaffolded worksheet.) Grades 3-5 lesson. WOOP App: Android | IOS

• Character Day - Find ways to participate and elaborate on the activities offered for this annual event.

• Ideas to Action - Start with your students’ understanding of the growth mindset strength. Then introduce the term “Ideas to Action” in which you demonstrate how they can take their ideas and move into action mode first by doing some planning. Look to design what an action-oriented mindset flowchart might look like. Students then decide something they want to do and use the flowchart template to proactively plan the steps to get there.

• Inward-Outward ² - Think of ways to be proactive internally for your own wellbeing. Think of ways to be proactive for the benefit of others. Example: In- Make a plan for something that benefits yourself. Then do it! Out- Make a plan to do something helpful for someone else.

• Lesson Databases - Find lessons at the Heart-Mind Online resource site provided by the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. Find lessons at the Greater Good in Education resource site provided by the Greater Good Science Center (University of California - Berkeley).

• Proactive Calendar - Choose a month to post a daily proactive activity for everyone to try. Here is a kindness example for February.

• Sketchnoting to Paint the Strength Picture - Guide your students to make visible their self-understanding of how they currently engage with each strength. A secondary activity is to have your students sketch out new ways they can exercise each strength. We know that going from thinking about ideas to then make them visible often leads to taking action with the ideas. The first step to this strategy is to teach your students about sketchnoting. You will find applications of this tool across all areas of your curriculum. :) Students can take pictures of their sketches to upload to Seesaw to then explain their thinking.

• Strength Chart - Teachers have lots of ways to bring strengths into the language and culture of their classrooms. A teacher at one of my schools connected to the school's core values by having the names of students on small sticky labels that he stuck to the core values poster. He would place the student's name by the value on the chart in the following ways that are adapted here for the strengths. One technique is for students who want the class to support his/her effort to grow their strengths to have his/her name placed beside the designated strength(s). A second strategy is for teachers to verbally highlight students who are applying their strengths at the moment in class. The teacher then puts the student’s name by the strengths on the chart.

• Superhero Creation - Challenge your students to create a superhero who maximizes this strength. One approach is to have your students draw a picture of the character with a biography that describes how the superhero uses the strength in his/her life. You can provide categories such as physical, intellectual (thinking), emotional, and social as to how the superhero demonstrates the strength. This activity could take the form of playing cards that students then create games around.

• Timeboxing - This technique of setting calendar events focused on specific tasks provides a simple way to be in charge of one's day. Nir Eyal provides this strategy to help us be more "indistractable".

• Working Backwards - Educators are probably familiar with the concept of determining an optimal outcome (i.e., task or project completion) to then work backward to design the needed steps to complete it while including a measurement technique for accountability. Look to introduce this approach to your students to help them visualize outcomes to then think about the steps needed to accomplish their tasks, projects, etc. Timeboxing really helps with this process especially when students set intermediate calendar events while listing their planned actions to get to their due date. Here is a blog post that outlines this working backwards process.

• Other possibilities - Proactive Superhero marketing design projects, Student-created videos highlighting proactive action stories, building proactive practices into class cultures, high school IB students using CAS time to produce age-appropriate videos for ES students answering questions of “What does being proactive look like? What actions and tools can help me be more proactive?”, older student buddies and their ES partners from time to time share examples of being proactive, incorporate into co-curricular activities like field trips, after school activities, assemblies, etc.

Grade(s) Specific Teaching Strategies: The following ideas are offered as jumping-off points for teachers to build from and adapt to their needs.

EC-K>

• Lesson Listing - Access teacher-created lessons and those from other providers. (To be developed)

• Proactivity “If ---, then --- Wall”. Teachers introduce the concept of being proactive by using “if, then” statements around regular activities in the lives of the students (e.g, if you brush your teeth, your dentist visit is easy. If you share toys, your friend will share toys with you). Teachers already do this so just incorporate the strength language by highlighting examples of it in action on the “proactivity wall”.

• Storybook readings, digital media, and share time by teachers and students to build understanding.

• Use visuals of toolkits and tools engaging language of creating our "strength toolkits" with strengths as tools.

1-3>

• Grades 1-2> possibly doing some storybook readings and use of digital media. Eventually could lead to students writing their own storybooks that show their proactive actions.

• Lesson Listing - Access teacher-created lessons and those from other providers. (To be developed)

• Proactivity wall in each classroom where students post examples of their efforts.

• Student Agency. Work with students' ideas to learn and strengthen they're being more proactive. Discuss how they feel when they plan for and act upon tasks and projects as opposed to being reminded to do so.

• Use visuals of toolkits and tools engaging language of creating our "strength toolkits" with strengths as tools.

• Weekly Contribution Seesaw Journal post: will need to develop prompt and potential categories for students to draw a picture of and/or take a photo of their proactive actions. They then voice-record their response.

4-5>

• Design a lesson around the question “How do you think people succeed?”.

• Journal - Google Doc or paper version. The teacher provided prompts and in time work with students to create new prompts. Could be a section of their portfolio.

• Lesson Listing - Access teacher-created lessons and those from other providers. (To be developed)

• Work with student ideas to learn and strengthen being proactive.

Learning About Proactivity:

Websites>

Character Lab

Books>

Parent Engagement:

• Ask someone to video record the strength in action and publicize the efforts via social media (#----------) and the school website.

• Family Tree of Strengths: Provide parents with definitions and what strengths can look like in action. Provide a family tree graphic organizer with space for names and the individual’s main strengths. Offer prompts to guide parents to explain how family members and earlier generations lived specific strengths.

• Have students take their character cards home to teach their parents about their strengths.

• Strength-based Parenting - Share with your parents the Dr. Lea Waters website which includes resources and information on her book. Here is an article to help with your understanding of strength-based parenting.

• Teachers send specific reminders to have family talks around the proactive reflection products the students produce.

• Teachers offer ideas for parents to share with their children weekly examples of their experiences of being proactive.

• Use our various communication pathways to inform parents of their children strengthening their proactivity.

• VIA Strengths Survey: Send parents information about the strengths and the English language Strengths Survey that they can take. The results can offer a discussion starting point for families.

Character Lab Research References

Character Lab Image Source

¹ Embedding Character Strengths. Institute of Positive Education. With permission.

² Niemiec, Ryan M., and Neal H. Mayerson. The Strengths-Based Workbook for Stress Relief: a Character Strengths Approach to Finding Calm in the Chaos of Daily Life. New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 2019.