Page 207, Unit II The Development of a Pleasing Personality. (12-16 periods.)
Specific Aims.
- To develop an appreciation of the advantages of a pleasing personality in home, social and community life.
- To develop a realization of the importance of family life and a desire to help create a happy home.
- To develop some understanding of the management problems of the home and a willingness to share responsibility for activities carried on in the home.
- To develop an understanding of how location, size, arrangement, and equipment of the home affect home life.
- To give information and to develop judgements which will enable girls to spend more wisely that part of the family income with which they are directly concerned.
- To create a desire to acquire the desirable characteristics of a good citizen and to help in developing a more satisfactory community.
Project I
The development of appreciation of a pleasing personality. (8 - 10 periods.)
Assignments
Suggested Approaches and Procedure
Student Activity
Activities
I. Qualities Which Attract in a Friend.
Attraction of a person who is: -
1. Cheerful
2. Happy and healthy
3. Truthful
4. Appreciative and sympathetic
5. In possession of a sense of humour
6. Tactful and considerate
7. Broad-minded
8. Loyal and sincere
9. Not over-sensitive
10. Dependable
11. Attractively dressed and well-groomed
Discuss: Catharine comes from a home where conditions are somewhat unsatisfactory, yet, in spite of this, she has many friends. She has a happy nature, and her actions are unquestionable.
Why has Catharine been able to make friends?
Show pictures of well-dressed and inappropriately dressed girls.
To which of these girls would one be attracted in the beginning a friendship?
Summarize qualities in a friend which attract.
List one characteristic student lacks, and decide method by which this may be developed.
List points in note-book.
II. Effect of Environment on Friendship.
Rising above that part of ones environment cannot be changed.
Discuss: Does Catharine face a greater problem than other girls in making friends? Why?
III. Importance of Social Contacts:
1. Dependence on each other for: -
a.) Livelihood
b.) Friendships
Discuss: What do you think Mrs. Pinehart means by her statement that it is only human relationships that matter in life?
Read The Fallacy of Freedom by Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Watch relationships in class assemblies and clubs and improve own.
2. Our responsibility to: -
a.) Family
b.) Friends
c.) People in general
d.) Community
Do you agree that no one lives his own life and that freedom is loneliness?
List points discussed.
Personal relationships. Read Burham, Jones, & Redford; also Hunter.
IV. Desirable Social Qualities to be Developed:
1. Pleasing voice and speech
2. Conversational ability
3. Poise, self-control
4. Courtesy
Joy and Lucille have been going to the public library every evening supposedly to study, but they have used the time for chattering and making noise instead. This became so annoying that the librarian finally asked them to leave. The girls were very indignant.
Was the librarian justified in asking the girls to leave?
Were the girls justified in being angry?
Write a paragraph giving characteristics of the personality of the woman who has most impressed the student.
V. Social Qualities Developed in Clubs and School Organizations:
1. Characteristics of leaders: -
a.) Self-control
b.) Progressivism
c.) Unselfishness
d.) Dependability
2. Characteristics of group leaders: -
a.) Loyalty
b.) Co-operation
VI. Qualities Desirable in Boy-Girl Friendships.
1. Naturalness
2. Common interests
3. Tolerance
4. Understanding
5. Social ease
6. Being a good listener
7. Comradeship
Discuss: In Little Women what made Jos and Lauries relationship a true friendship?
List points discussed.
Write a paragraph showing a good example of true friendship, basing this on your own experience.
VII. Difficulties to be Overcome Physical Infirmities: -
1. Responsibility to person handicapped:
a.) Tolerance
b.) Kindness
c.) Encouragement
Discuss: Have you ever known a girl who had a physical handicap?
How did this handicap affect her life?
What should our attitude be towards those who have a physical difficulty?
One student report to the class the case of some girl with a physical handicap.
Summarize points discussed.
Describe how to help a girl overcome a stutter.
2. How a person handicapped can overcome the difficulty:
a.) Avoid self-pity
b.) Try to enter into the same activity as others
c.) Train special abilities
d.) Have courage
3. How to overcome obesity and extreme thinness:
a.) Study cases
b.) Study remedies
VII. Adjustment Difficulties.
1. The effect of: -
a.) Sarcasm
b.) Making fun of others
c.) Gossip
2. Needs in adjusting to surroundings:
a.) Patience
b.) Conscious effort to correct difficulty
c.) Co-operation of friends
d.) Analysis of self
e.) Reading of helpful material and application of what is learned
Discuss: A queerly dressed, awkward girl entered a city high school. Her parents were sacrificing a great deal to send her to school. As she walked through the halls, she heard giggles and sarcastic remarks. That night, Cora went back home where she was working for her board determined not to return to school.
What effect might this influence have had on Coras life?
Were the members of this high school expressing friendliness?
What might Coras schoolmates have done to help her?
Describe how to help a very stout girl overcome her stoutness.
Write a paragraph on how her schoolmates might have helped Cora to overcome her awkwardness.
Read again The Girl of the Limberlost. Consider ones own personality to determine what might be done to make one a better friend.
IX. Attitudes in the Home:
1. Members of family best friends
2. Tolerance and helpfulness toward each other
3. Unselfishness and willingness to co-operate
4. No favouritism
5. Health
6. Adjustment to differences.
Discuss: Muriel is a charming girl. Her manners are perfect, and when visiting her friends, she is always willing to help, agreeable and good-natured. One day, I visited Muriels home unexpectedly just as Muriel was having a temper tantrum because her mother thought it was not wise for her to go to a basketball game in a neighbouring town.
Is it right to allow our worst side to be shown at home and our better side in public?
What considerations should be shown to our family?
How can Muriel correct this attitude?
Project II
The development of an understanding of the factors which make a happy home and the means of developing them. (4 - 6 periods.)
Topical Outlines
Suggested Approaches and Procedure
Assignments
X. Responsibility of Individuals in the Home:
1. Help remedy unpleasant conditions
2. Carry fair share of labour
I. Factors Which Contribute to a Happy Home Life:
1. Love and consideration for each other
2. Tolerance for differences of opinion
3. Common interests and ideals
4. Sufficient income to maintain a reasonable standard of living
5. Mutual agreement as to best methods of spending income
6. Cheerful atmosphere
7. Co-operation
8. Time for individual activities and quiet:
a.) Hobbies
b.) Development of talents
9. The family council
10. Reasonable division of home responsibilities
11. Recreation
Discuss: I was awakened at 6 oclock on a cold February morning by the crackling of a wood fire and the cheery sound of girls voices as they worked busily at their morning tasks. It did not take me long to dress as my tiny room in the cold farmhouse was below zero. Soon I was in the warm kitchen, washing in water taken from a barrel behind the stove. This weeks routine found Dorothy busy at the stove getting breakfast, tidying the combined dining and living room and setting the table, Julia packing tasty lunches for all of us to take to school, and Mary and Dora out in the barn milking the cow and caring for the chickens. By 7 oclock, breakfast was over, the dishes and the separator washed, and we were all trekking through the snow to catch the school bus. So began my first days visit at Sherwood ranch, where I was staying with the older girls in the family and their friend Nora, while mother, father, and the two babies were away.
Would you like to visit this family? Why?
Why was so much accomplished in such a short time?
Judging by this incident, what kind of parents do you think Mr and Mrs. Sherwood were?
How has this home taken the good from the home of our grandmothers and still overcome its disadvantages?
What responsibilities do you feel the older girls would have taken for the babies when they were at home? Do you feel that these girls carried too many responsibilities? Give reasons.
Discuss: It was 3:30 p.m. Sue dashed into the house, snatched some cookies from the kitchen table, where her mother has just planted them from the oven, and went on upstairs. Soon she called Mother, I cant find my tennis-racquet. Mrs. Jones left her baking and went to get her daughters racquet for her, stopping to make Sues bed while she was upstairs. After her tennis match, Sue returned just in time for supper. Before she had finished, Betty called for her to go the library, and she did not return till bedtime.
What interest did Sue have in her home? What was wrong in this home? In Sues attitude? In that of her mother? Should this family have had a family council? How might it have corrected this attitude? Should the father share some of the responsibilities for household tasks or is the home the mothers entire responsibility? Develop the idea that running the home is a family problem best solved by co-operation of every member in the family.
Shoulder responsibility in the home.
II. Means of Securing a Happy Home:
1. Selection of a life companion:
a.) Common interests
b.) Similar educational advantages
c.) Similar environment and early training
d.) Common religious ideals
e.) Common racial background
f.) Good heredity
g.) Congenial temperature
h.) Similar level of intelligence
Discuss: Jerry Smith and Helen Jergensen are in their early twenties. After graduation from high school, Helen became a clerk in a store. Jerry attended business college for a year after he left high school. He now has a position in an insurance office at $125 a month. Helen and Jerry want to get married.
Have they a reasonable hope of being happy?
What are some of the things that should be considered before one gets married?
What should one expect from marriage?
What points should one consider in choosing a life companion?
III. Sharing the Home with Others:
1. The gracious hostess:
a.) Interest
b.) Poised
c.) Considerate and tactful
d.) Friendly and cheerful
e.) Adaptable
2. The guest:
a.) Accepts or regrets promptly
b.) Is agreeable
c.) Is interested
d.) Enters into plans
e.) Does her part
f.) Shows appreciation
Discuss: Pete was raised on a farm in Alberta. His parents were Swedish and the customs and the language of Sweden prevailed in his home. It had been a hard struggle on the farm. In Calgary he met Virginia, whose father was a prominent doctor. She had been brought up in luxury.
Would it be wise for Pete and Virginia to marry?
IV. The home A part of the Community:
1. Receives protection:
a.) Fire
b.) Police
c.) Traffic
d.) Health
2. Supplied with conveniences:
a.) Water
b.) Streets
c.) Mail
d.) Lights
e.) Transportation
f.) Recreation centres
3. Supplied with aids to development:
a.) Schools
b.) Libraries
c.) Museums
d.) Lectures
4. May receive when in need:
a.) Welfare federation
b.) Care of defectives, such as blind, deaf, cripples, feebleminded
c.) Pensions
d.) Orphanages
5. Co-operations of home with community
a.) Respecting law and order
b.) Exercising rights of citizenship
c.) Being informed on public questions
Illustrative Material and References
I. Jordan, Ziller, & Brown
II. Rockwood: Pictures of Family Life.
III. Jordan, Ziller, & Brown
III. 2. Groves, Skinner, & Swenson
VI. Alcott: Little Women.
VII. 2. Porter: The Girl of the Limberlost.
IX. Rockwood & Dennis
X. Rockwood, Trilling, & Nicholas; Justin & Rust; Jordan, Ziller, & Brown.
