A Lesson Plan from Life Planning Education: A Youth Development Program (Chapter Three)

NOTE:  Life Planning Education (LPE) is currently being revised. The printed/for-sale version includes an older version of this lesson plan. Please make sure you have looked at the PDF of Life Planning Education before purchasing - that is the version that is available to buy.

Leader’s Resource for the lesson plan, Speaking Up For Yourself

1. Your friend has talked to you on the phone for over an hour about problems with their partner.  You don’t want to listen any longer and you need to leave to meet your own partner.
2. You are about to vote in a citywide referendum and someone outside the polling station tries to talk to you about your vote.
3. You have finals coming up and your sibling is playing loud music that interferes with your ability to concentrate.
4. You are running into serious problems with the guidance counselor who isn’t listening when you talk about the harassment that you are experiencing.  He keeps saying that everyone has to go through some harassment.
5. A friend borrowed your car and returned it damaged.  You want them to pay for the part of the repair bill that your insurance didn’t cover.
6. You are at a party and someone new is being teased to do something they clearly don’t want to do.  The teasing begins to escalate into name-calling and you want it to stop.
7. Your best friend promised to go with you to the family planning clinic, but let you down and didn’t show.
8. Your girlfriend/boyfriend wants to have a baby and get married.  You don’t feel ready for any of that and you also have other plans, college, life in a new city, seeing the world.
9. You are having lunch with your best friend at a nice restaurant and when the bill comes, it includes charges for things you didn’t order.
10. You have been waiting nearly an hour for your friend, and the game has started. You have the tickets and feel stuck – unable to go on inside and see the game. Finally, your friend shows and apologizes but you still feel really angry.
11. You hear someone that you admire make a personal comment about someone else.  The comment is racist (or homophobic or sexist), and you really feel upset.
12. Your relationship with your significant other is becoming more intimate. You want to make sure that, together, you practice safer sex.

Life Planning Education, Advocates for Youth, Updated 2009.