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Seventh & Eighth Grade
LESSON
Two
Forming Community Agreements
60 min
This lesson is currently under review with Nest Educational Advisors. Please check back later for updates.
This lesson focuses on creating community agreements. Students reflect on their rights, explore key rights from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and discuss how empathy and social emotions, such as guilt and shame, influence behavior. They also learn the importance of "calling in" over "calling out" to maintain dignity and support positive change. Through group activities, students create classroom rules that link rights with responsibilities. By the end of the lesson, students will understand how respect, empathy, and responsibility strengthen their classroom community.
Materials
Handouts
quicklinks
how to prepare for this lesson
At the start of class, teachers should have the following prepared:
- A plan to split class into small groups
- Copies of 7.2 Rights of Children for each student
- Blank Sheet of Paper for each group
- Student journals ready to be distributed
Additional Resources
Sources
- This lesson was adapted in part from Living Democracy.
- UNICEF. (2021). The Convention on the Rights of the Child: The Children’s Version.
- Noba Project. (n.d.). The Psychology of Groups.
- Abrams, D., & De Moura, G. R. (2021). Defending or challenging group boundaries? The impact of fairness, threat, and prototypicality on group members’ reactions to newcomers. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations