Achievement Standards: Standard 3 - Art as Inquiry
Students demonstrate how the arts reveal universal concepts and themes. Students reflect upon and assess the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others.
ESSENTIALS (Grades 4-8)
*Explain and justify the meanings constructed from their own and others' dramatic performances.

Student Objectives:
Objective:
To explore the concept of perceptiveness and discover how this aspect of emotional intelligence can serve us well in life.
Goals:
Students will interact with peers in a confident and self-aware manner.
Students will be able to make choices and defend them to others.
Students will be able to selif-mediate conflict.

Materials:
Large index cards, one for each student, with a positive adjective which can be used to describe a person. Teachers wishing to explore their own emotional intelligence and perceptiveness can "gamble" by tailoring the list to the individuals in the class.

Introduction:
Discuss the portion of the book Emotional Intelligence which describes the unusual perceptiveness of four year old Judy, the nursery school student who was able to match up "best friends" and favorite play spots for her entire class. Discuss how perceptiveness can be a valuable life skill. I like to reference the quote from Terrance McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart that "we all know each other so well and we spend our whole lives pretending we don't."

Warm-up:
Instructor coaches students to relax themselves physically by shaking out body parts: arms, hands, legs, feet, face, etc. He or she should then coach the students to begin to move about the room silently walking in all directions and "taking in" each other's energy. Instructor should emphasize that there is no right and wrong, students should simply strive to be receptive to taking in another person's energy.

Example:
The exercise will work best if the instructor demonstrates the procedure outlined below in a preselected scenario with a student, so everyone understands the procedure in an individual setting before it is applied to the larger group.

Procedure:
Instructor will mix up index cards in full view of the students. One by one, students will approach the instructor and pick a card, not revealing it to anyone. When everyone has their cards, instructor will coach students to find a semi-private space within the room and "try out" their adjective, using the following "test". The sentences "I think I am a _________ person. Other people think I am a ____________ person" should be uttered aloud by the student, inserting the adjective written on the index card.

After the student has "gotten to know" their adjective, the instructor coaches them to walk around the room as before, encountering people and putting their word to the "test". Two people meet and each repeats aloud to the other the two sentences, inserting the adjective written on their card. After each has done so, they should "try out" the adjective written on the other person's card. Using perceptiveness skills, it should become apparent to both students whether they should switch cards and they will either agree to do so or agree to keep the same card. Students should walk around the room, testing out self-descriptors for about five minutes. Instructor should continue to sidecoach during this time, especially reminding students that if they ale satisfied with the self-descriptor they are carrying, all the more reason to be confident in defending it to as many people as possible. In the event that an impasse is reached; two people who continue, after repeated "testings," to disagree about whether they should trade or "hold", the default option, to be mediated by instructor, is that they should "hold".

After five minutes have elapsed, instructor should "freeze" the action and ask for a show of hands as to who feels that they hold the card that is the best self-descriptor for them. If many hands are still down, instructor should continue the activity, in increments of two minutes, until he or she feels that the activity is over; either all hands are up, or the number of hands raised continues to be the same. If the latter is the case, the instructor should ask dissatisfied students if they can "make peace" with the card they hold in their hand. All students will then retreat to their semiprivate location in the room and create enthusiasm for the card they hold by repeating ALOUD, as always, "I think I am a ___________ person. Other people think I am a ____________ person" as many times as they feel is needed until they are "jazzed up" about their card. Students will then join the group in a circle, at which time each student will "present" their card with confidence by announcing to the group that "I think I am a ___________ person! Other people think I am a____________person!"

Optional:
If the instructor is comfortable with the group, he or she may "predict", despite the random distribution of cards, who will wind up with which adjective, thereby putting their own emotional intelligence and perceptiveness to the test. If this option is elected, it should be clearly stated that this is being done to illustrate the point, not as an exercise in self-importance.

Assessment:
With the class still in the circle, discuss the final results and whether or not participants were satisfied. How many were? How many weren't? Did anyone learn anything about themselves or the others in their ensemble? Finally, discuss situations in which perceptiveness would serve us well in life where intellectual intelligence (the three R's) might not. Why?
                                                                                          Created by Mark Armstrong