| Relationship games - the labels we wear |
| Sandra's guide pages |
| Label Activity One game that we used to do in Pathfinders was the Label activity. Parents and girls are divided into small groups and given a topic to discuss. However, each person wears a label on their forehead (not knowing what it says) like: ignore me, praise me, treat me like I'm stupid, agree with me.....etc. After a while, have people guess their labels and talk about labels in life. It works well with parents too! Respecting Others Divide your group into two. Take one half aside and give them paper and a pencil. Tell them they are to have conversation, or interact with 10 people in the other group in an allotted time. Everyone in the other half gets a sign (which I made from construction paper and with a yarn "necklace" to place it over the head.) No-one is able to read their own sign so they don't know what it says. Make up signs like "Tell me I look tired", "Ignore me", "Tell me I look great", "Call me stupid", "Treat me like your best friend" etc. There should be a variety of positive and negative signs. ONLY the group with pencil and paper can initiate a conversation. The group with signs must wait for someone to talk to them. It helps if they can slip the comment into the conversation. (i.e. A friend of mine was wearing the "Call me stupid" sign at the Multicultural workshop. Someone came up to her and asked her where she was from. When she said, Cardigan, they replied, "I hear there are a lot of stupid people living in Cardigan"!) I have to admit, if I KNEW there was someone with shaky self esteem or very shy, I would tend to "plant" them with a positive sign. So I might ask someone who knew the group well, if I didn't. After the group "interacts" it is important to debrief what happened, talking about how people treated them, how it made them feel, how they felt if they had a negative sign and why, who had the advantages and why. It is also important with an exercise like this that everyone know the game ends when the game is over, and should not be used to joke over a weekend, etc. I used the exercise in a discussion of stereotypes. We all have invisible signs which we wear and which affect the way people treat us. We need to examine our reactions to the way we are treated because they can also add to the way we are treated in future. Roles and Labels Objectives: To observe how roles can play out in a group, examine roles people play and identify both the positive and negative aspects of roles. Group size: 7-15 Materials: Post-it notes with labels or other "head band type labels, paper, tape, string and odds and ends. Directions: Give each person a role to "wear" on their head. Ask them not to look at it, but put it on directly. Tell the group that their task is to build a "tower" using the materials given (paper, tape, etc.) Ask them to treat people according to their labels. Designate at least two observers, who will not participate in the task. Have them begin the role-play, let it go on as long as they need to bring out some of the roles. Stop the role-play. Facilitate a discussion with the following questions: What did you think your label said? How did it affect your participation? Are their labels among our group? How does it affect participation? Potential labels to work with: "ignore me", " act surprised", "laugh at everything I say", "none of my ideas are good", "hang on my every word", "I confuse you", "tell me to shut up", "treat me like a kid", etc. |