Effort: Key to Success
(Ten Minute Lesson for Middle School)

Preparation: 1 - Have some candy or another prize to be given to each winning team. 2 - Think of how giving it your best effort has paid off at times in your life. Are there ways you overcame apathy that might benefit your students?

Untangle Game

Divide into groups of 4 (must be an even number). Stand facing one another in a circle.  Instruct each student to grab the right hand of a student across from (not next to) him or her. Next, join left hands with a different person.  Then, try to untangle (end with a circle without any hands crossed) without anyone letting go. After a time limit, have teams join to have 8 people. Tell them that the winning team will receive candy or some prize. At the end, reward both the team that got unraveled first and another that seemed to show unusual effort. If all showed equal effort, reward them all the same.

Discussion:

1) Was this an easy task, or did it involve effort?
2) Why do you think I rewarded teams not only for winning, but also for their effort?
3) How can "trying your hardest" pay off in real life? (You might want to give an example of how giving your all paid off.)
4) Can you give some examples of times when you've given it your all? (A sport, learning an instrument, learning to skate, etc.)
5) What keeps us from giving our best at times?
6) How can we overcome these barriers to giving our best?

Tying It All Together

You might end with an example of someone who gave their best effort and won. (You'll find many stories you could use under our topics: "Commitment," "Motivation," "Perseverance." Find a story that relates to your students and their interests. Here's one example:

"The Matrix: Rewritten"

Do you ever resent it when your teacher asks you to do a paper over in order to make it make it better?  What if she asked you to revise it a second time, or a third? Don't get discouraged! 

After the Wachowski Brothers originally wrote the story for the blockbuster hit, The Matrix, the script was rewritten, and rewritten to get it right. How many times do you think it was rewritten? The answer? Fourteen times. That's actually not so odd for people who have a passion to get things right. (Directors' cut - Inside The Matrix with the mysterious Brothers Wachowski - Matrix's mystery brothers; MICHAEL MCKENNA, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia) 05-15-2003)

Ernest Hemingway was a great author, but that doesn't mean that the words just flowed effortlessly from his typewriter. He rewrote the conclusion to his novel, Farewell to Arms, seventeen times to finally get it the way he wanted it. (Reworded from R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man)

Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist, but that doesn't mean he could sit down and effortlessly draw whatever he wanted on the first try. Once, he drew a thousand hands.  (R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man)

So this week let's not get discouraged when sometimes we have to do things over and over and over to get them right. It may be a football play or basketball drill that seems to go on forever. It might be a project that never seems to satisfy your teacher. But that's how we learn. And it's that relentless striving for perfection that helps us find success. 

Discussion Questions

1) Why do you think da Vinci drew a thousand hands?
2) How many of you thought "The Matrix" was a cool Movie?
3) Why do you think they rewrote the script so many times?
4) Why do we get discouraged when we have to do some things over and over?
5) What is some area that you can pursue this week, being willing to redo it over and over, until you get it right?

Say...

"Often our M.Q. (Motivation Quotient) is more important than our I.Q. Today and this week, let's pay attention to how hard we're trying and turn our effort  up a notch when we find ourselves slacking off."