"Compasses or Shoulder Angels?"--A lesson on why God matters...

This is an outline for a Leadership class (and books and poems) that we did for the month we studied "The Role of God and Religion in society" Jan 2013

Article focus: The Church: Scaffolding for our lives by Elder Tom Perry
Biography: Joan of Arc
Book: Pollyanna
Master-level book: Joan of Arc
Poem: "I never saw a moor" by Emily Dickenson
Master poem: "Be Strong!" By Maltbie Davenport Babcock

"Compasses or Shoulder Angels?"
Devotional: watch segment of "Joseph Smith's First Vision"
TJEd for Teens discussion (Ch 1 & 2): Elements of Leadership Education and being born for times like this...and doing something about it (fits well with Joan of Arc)
     -We made three signs to post on the wall, covering the concepts in the paragraph before "The Youth Lead the World" and the points in #1 and #2 below (pg 3)
Article Discussion: Scaffolding (link above, and notes below)
Synergy of the Mind project: use toothpicks and duct tape to create a scaffolding.  Test to see how much it can hold!
"What we build for our personal scaffolding that will hold us in place in these last days is a matter of CHOICE!" (watch Enemy Territory, by Boyd K. Packer )

"What is it that makes us do what we do:
-an inner compass?
-scaffolding?
-voices (like Joan)?"

"I like to think of it more as 'shoulder angels'!" (Links for fun:  Krank's shoulder angels, Donald's Better Self)

I told them that their "shoulder angels" are only as effective as the amount of attention we give them, and then I asked them what they are doing to "feed" or sustain their shoulder angels? :)

Then I asked them how Joan of Arc treated her angels, or her voices...and what made her effective in fulfilling her mission.  I talked a lot about how she and other people in history were sent to the earth as babies at just the right time to be where they needed to be to complete their missions...and then I would make the connection to the youth, that they were born at a certain time and in a certain place so that they, like Joan of Arc, Joseph Smith, and so many others, could fulfill their mission.

We then did projects on Joan, covering her life with my daughter making a Jeopardy game out of the info she read in Landmark series book about Joan.

As people have their own ideas, successes and failures, it would be great if they could share!