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Self Esteem

The Church recognizes that it is not enough to "know" right from wrong. You need to have enough guts to do the right thing. The Church gives you the map-and-compass. Self esteem gives you the confidence to follow your map-and-compass even when everybody else goes in a different direction.

Special thanks go to - Art Williams , Director of Theatre at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan.

An Unfinished Story

It is the middle of August. Your neighbor's parents invite you up to their cottage on Torch Lake for a long weekend. Your parents have to work but agree to let you go. You go up to the cottage. The cottage is pretty primitive. The beach is shallow and weedy. Everybody swims by taking a pontoon boat out to the middle of the lake and diving off it. There is no cable or satellite dish. They do not even have a telephone.

Sunday afternoon rolls around. The mom goes out to a yard-sale. The dad falls asleep watching baseball on TV. The neighbor kid, who is two years older than you, suggests that you go swimming. You agree. You put on your swimsuit and a tee-shirt. Both of you hop onto the pontoon boat and off you.

After swimming, the neighbor suggests that you cruise around the lake. You think that is a fine idea since there is nothing to do back at the cottage. You cruise for about 45 minutes and then your neighbor spots a whole bunch of his/her friends at one of the cottages. He/she pulls up to the dock. "Gotta use the bathroom!" he/she says.

You wait on the boat for about 10 minutes and then decide to go looking for them. It is a big house. You wander around the house but cannot find your neighbor. There seem to be a lot of young people in the house. The doors to several of the rooms are closed. You go back downstairs to wait. It looks like there is a party going on. Most of the kids look like they are 17-to-22 years old. One of them puts a styrofoam cup of beer in your hand.

How does the story end?

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Teacher's notes:

Ask the following questions:

Don't tell the audience which option you chose. We should be able to figure it out from the skit.

Let the teams separate and spread out to write and rehearse their skits. Provide teams with a prop, the very largest styrofoam cup you can find. ************************************************************************

This is a reasonable breakpoint for donuts.

Donuts, 5 minutes to get them. 5 minutes to handle drinks and munch donuts

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During the skits, ask if there are any graceful ways to avoid drinking the beer. Most ninth graders will want to avoid making a scene. Suggest dumping the beer in a sink and filling with tap-water. An empty glass is likely to get filled....letting somebody else fill it is giving away your control.

Be prepared to answer questions regarding your Church's position on the adult consumption of alcohol.

Be prepared for a discussion regarding a Christian's responsibility with respect to civil law.

Initiate a discussion. Ask if all parties are the same. Ask people to describe different flavors of parties. Write their responses on the flip chart. Sometimes parties start out one way (mellow) and change as new people show up or as people get drunk. Sometimes it is a big party that is really three or four smaller parties that are happening at the same place. A party can be a room playing poker, A party can be five-or-six people watching movies on a big screen TV, A party can be a room with people snorting coke. There is no one right answer when "party" can mean so many different things.

Ask them what elements in the story that increase likelihood of doing something stupid. Write the answers on the flip chart.