GKidz Barnabas Club Leadership Series: Self Awareness Lesson 1: Body Language Speaks Louder than Words Date: 16 & 17 Feb 2013 Note to Leaders: At Barnabas Club, our aim is to see our children develop a conviction and commitment to follow Jesus. At the same time, we would like all Barnabas children to catch the heartbeat of serving others, by developing awareness of the qualities of a servant leader. This series of 5 lessons will focus of SELF AWARENESS. Children should be able to lead themselves well before they learn how to lead others. Lesson 1: Body Language Speaks Louder than Words Lesson 2: Feelings are Signals Lesson 3: Feelings and Actions are linked Lesson 4: We are Spirit-Beings Lesson 5: Power of Reflection and Feedback Memory Verse: Show proper respect to everyone. Love the community of believers. Have respect for God. 1 Peter 2:17 (NIRV) Learning Objective for Lesson 1: Children will use their body and facial expression to communicate respect and love. Materials Needed: Scenario 1 Video (GKidz will provide) Charts from Annex A & B in A4 size (GKidz will provide) 1
PLATFORM TEACHING (15 mins) Teacher 1 & 2 are GKidz friends. Teacher 1 is the wiser one of the 2, while Teacher 2 asks silly questions at times. Teacher 1: Hey! I ve got something amazing to show you! Teacher 2: What is it? I m busy! (busy doing something) Teacher 1: Oh, okay then never mind. (Pause for a moment) Teacher 1: Hey do you know that there are many eyes looking at us now? We are on stage! Teacher 2: Oh is it? Oh Oh okay I m ready! (Poses, smiles at the audience. Walks across the stage like a model) Teacher 1: What are you doing? You are not on Miss Universe Paegent you know! Teacher 2: But I think it s important that I have good posture! Then people will think I have something important to say. Teacher 1: Ahh, so you do know that your body language tells people something about you! Teacher 2: Ah my what? Teacher 1: Body language! Your body movements and gestures tell others something about how you are feeling. Amazingly, God created our bodies and faces to be able to communicate. Let s look at these photos and you tell me what are the emotions being communicated to us? Let s see how many of us can guess correctly. (Show PowerPoint slides) Surprise Happy Sad Angry 2
Disgust Fear Teacher 1 (continues): Let me show you a video of a group of people in a discussion. You won t be able to hear a word but, through their body gestures, we can see A LOT! Let s watch it together. ( Show video titled Scenario 1 ) Teacher 2: OHHHH!! I can see that that guy in the group wasn t very interested in the discussion. He kept looking at this book when his friend was talking. And that girl wearing sun glasses puts her head on the table towards the end, it seems so rude to me. Teacher 1: Now you know how your teacher feels if you lay your head on the table when she is teaching! Teacher 2: oh yes. (Shows guitly face) Teacher 1: Our body language speaks volumes about what we are actually thinking in our mind! Teacher 2: Oh no! I didn t know that my body language had so much power! Teacher 1: It does you know! For example, on Sunday during worship time, if you just stand there like a flag pole, looking at the things that are happening on stage and not worshipping, you are not only telling your leaders and the worship leader, but you are also telling God, I am not interested in worshipping You God! I am simply not interested! Teacher 2: Oh no! I sometimes do that on Sundays! Teacher 1: Well, I think we all are guilty of that sometimes too! What our body shows is a reflection of what our mind is thinking! Teacher 2: Wow! That means that I ve got to be mindful of my body language! Teacher 1: That s right! Because if you re not, you might send the wrong signal to the other people! Teacher 2: Oh no, I don t want to do that! I m so sorry that I looked like I wasn t interested in what you were telling me just now, right at the beginning!! What was it that you wanted to tell me? 3
Teacher 1: Well I really want to tell you about this amazing thing Pastor has chosen and tasked us to do some research about the heartbeat of serving others. You know about the news that ALL Barnabas children will have their turn to serve and help to run Barnabas Club, haven t you? For a start, pastor wants us to zoom into finding out more about self awareness for a servant leader.she says we should be able to lead ourselves well as we learn how to lead others. I found out so many amazing things about this!! You know.. Wait I think our friends need to go for their small group time, let us send them off first. Before we go, let s pray that God will help us with our body language. Dear God, we want to show love towards others not only with our words, but also with our bodies and facial expressions. I ask that you will give us self control and wisdom to do that. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen. Ok let me tell you more about that amazing thing (Both walk off stage together) SMALL GROUP TIME (45 mins) 1. Group Rules (5 mins) Visually show the set of rules tat were established for the group. (Leader must know what is the expected behaviour in the group. There must be consistency in reinforcing rules by both Team A & B leaders.) 2. Reinforce the concept of body language. (20 mins) a. Listen Out Leader to read Bible text 2 Samuel 6:14-16, 20-22 aloud. (Background to this passage David was finally crowned as king of Judah at the age of 30yrs old. The first thing he wanted to do as a king was to bring the Ark of God back to his city. However, in his first attempt to do that, an unfortunate incident happened and led to the death of one of his mighty men. Consequently, David was angry and afraid. He decided to leave the Ark in the house of Obed-Edom. But, 3 months later, David once again plucked up courage to bring the Ark back to his city. It is on this journey, David danced and rejoiced before the Lord in full view of his people.) As the passages are read aloud, have the children listen out and visualise at least 3 of David s body and facial expressions. The children will share what these expressions are. 4
b. Act it Out Let the children share some of David s body language that they have discovered. They can act it out if they want to. If the children are not able to list out some of the examples, ask them the following question: What did David do to show his happiness and rejoicing? (Ans: v.14 David danced before the Lord with all his might v.16 He was leaping and dancing before the Lord) c. Check it Out Check out how the people around David read his body language Ask the children the following questions: i. What do you think God saw when David danced in front of his people? (Ans: God sees it as a form of worship unto Him, and He saw it as David showing respect and love to Him.) ii. What did David s wife, Michal, see when David danced? (Ans: She saw it as a foolish behaviour, taking off his robes as he danced before his servant girls. (v20) She scolded David and looked down on David in her heart. (v16) Tell the children that our body language can be misunderstood sometimes. And it happened to David. Michal misunderstood him. Let s look at what David did to clear the misunderstanding: He explained to Michal that it was before the Lord that he was dancing (v21) And contrary to Michal s fear of being perceived negatively by their servants, David felt they would honor him even more because he was spontaneous in his worship. (v22) After sharing about what David did to clear the misunderstanding, ask the children the following questions and allow some of them to share: Have your body language ever been misunderstood by others? How did you feel when you were misunderstood? Did you manage to clear the misunderstanding? How did God help you to clear it? 3. Application of Be Your BEST (10 mins) Share with the children that we can show proper respect to everyone and love the community of believers (1 Peter 2:17,NIRV) by being mindful of our body language. 5
A practical way to help them to remind themselves to have a good body language, is to apply Be Your BEST. Refer to BEST (Annex A). Teach the children what is a good body posture and eye contact (Annex B). Encourage the children to apply them in our daily lives. 4. Journaling (10 mins) Ask children to reflect on the questions and journal down their thoughts: 1. What did you learn from today s lesson? 2. How can I do to be better in being my BEST? 3. How should my BEST look like when I am serving others in GKidz? Reference: Social Decision Making/ Social Problem Solving, A Curriculum for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning for Grades 2-3. By Maurice J.Elias & Linda Bruene Butler 6
Annex A 7
Annex B Chart on Various Ways to Express Our Body Posture and Eye Contact Aggressive Neutral Passive Body Posture Fists clenched In your face Tense Too close, grab, hit, slam push Pointing iddle finger Get lost hand signal Listening position Relaxed Standing tall Straight Slumping shoulders Shuffling feet Head down Eye Contact Glaring Staring Direct, good eye contact Looking down Looking away No eye contact 8