Who are you? - Emergency Brake

III
?
Methods
Description
Sheet
This exercise gives participants
the chance to discuss
social roles in society
and their personal point.
- To become aware of
the own place and role in
society
- To understand that the
society consists of individuals
and each one is
important
E - Civil Courage
Teenagers, young adults
6 - 15
40 minutes
- 10 cardboard boxes
(ca. 40cm x 40cm)
Mark each box with one
of these roles:
to
President, Mayor, Shop
owner, Head Master,
Police, Teacher, Parents
Friends, Neighbour, Me
Page 168
UK
The Me box
The participants are asked to build a tower with these 10
boxes. The task is to put the boxes in a certain order. The
box with the person, who has the most powerful role,
should be on top and the box with the person, who has
the least power, should be on the bottom.
The participants should decide all together where in the
tower each box has to be placed.
Afterwards the participants explain their choice.
Guiding questions:
- Was it difficult to decide the order of the boxes?
- How did you come to your decision?
- How did you decide who has more and who has less
power and why do you think so?
- How do you feel about the ”Me-box” and its position?
Do you feel important/useful?
After the discussion the facilitator pulls the ”Me-box”
out. The tower will collapse if the ”Me box” is placed in
the lower part of the tower.
Guiding questions:
- What has happened?
- How do you think about your importance for the
society now?
- Does a single person matter?
- Is the society a sum of single persons?
After the discussion and the debriefing the facilitator can
give a short input on civil courage and the importance of
each person for the society.
Normally participants place the ”Me box” in the lower
part of the tower. If not then the facilitator has to react
on this in the debriefing.
- The participants can choose different roles to put on
the boxes, but it is important to keep the ”Me-box”.
- At the end you can build a new tower with many
”Me-boxes”.