The Virtues Poster

Dan Vaillancourt

Activity presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the Association for
Bahá'í Studies of North America, Cambridge, MA, August 11-14, 2005


Learning Outcomes: Resources Needed: Learning Activities:
  1. Start by having students share what they believe are the qualities of a good friend.
  2. Talk about the power of words to uplift or to put down others. Share and analyze Bahá'u'lláh's quote that begins with "Every word is endowed with a spirit".
  3. Ask students to generate words or expressions that lift people up. Write these on the blackboard.
  4. Introduce the "52 Virtues of the Week" poster (or re-visit it if you've already used it previously). Ask students to identify virtues on it that they admire in their own friends.
  5. Explain that one of the purposes of today's lesson is to give them the opportunity to make others feel good.
  6. Hand out coloured marking pens and strips of paper so that every student gets the total number of students in the class minus one. (For example, if there are fifteen students in the class, each student should receive fourteen strips.)
  7. Explain that, one by one, you will be calling out the names of all the students in the class and that everyone will be asked to write down one sentence that identifies a positive quality or virtue in that person. Give a few examples such as, "Tony is very generous with his MP3 player" or "Maria is always friendly to everyone around her" or "Chi Wei is always in a happy mood". Ask students to avoid talking about physical qualities such as "Kendra has shiny hair" as students don't have much control over physical attributes and to avoid general words like "nice" and "good". What does "Alphonso is a nice person" really mean? Remind students that only positive qualities should be mentioned. Use the story of Jesus Christ and the dead dog to help students understand that we can always find at least one good quality in another person if we look hard enough.
  8. Call out the first person's name and ask everyone to think about then write a positive quality sentence about him or her. Write the name of this person on an envelope then walk around the room collecting the strips of paper.
  9. Follow the same procedures for the second person and so on until all students' names in the class have been called out.
  10. Tell students that the second part of the exercise (could be the next day) is for each student to design an attractive poster using the strips of paper that they will receive in the envelopes. Give each student a poster board, glue stick and one randomly selected envelope. Each student should write the name of the person whose envelope they receive in large letters on the poster board then arrange the strips of papers in an attractive design on the poster board. They may draw decorations, add stickers, glitter, etc.
  11. When everyone has completed their posters, have students present the posters to each other. This can be done privately or in a group setting.
  12. Ask students what they liked about the activity. Was the exercise easy or difficult? Why? Re-read Bahá'u'lláh's quote and ask students to comment on it again.
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