EXCUSES

The purpose of this assignment is to help students identify the excuses that prevent them from meeting their potential and to help them set goals that will help them eliminate the excuses that they use use the most. They will explore the following questions:

What are excuses?

Why do we give them?

What excuses do we most commonly use?

What happens when we give them?

ACTIVITY ONE	ACTIVITY TWO	ACTIVITY THREE
ACTIVITY FOUR	ACTIVITY FIVE	GOAL SHEET
OPTIONAL ACTIVITY		PDF GOAL SHEET

Ask students to recall any excuse that they have used in various situations over the past three days. As a teacher, try to share one of yours as well.

ACTIVITY ONE:

Break students into groups of four and give each group a pad of sticky notes. Give students 5-7 minutes to brainstorm for different excuses that they use. Emphasize that the excuses must be ones that they actually have used (not the dog ate my homework). Remind them that all ideas are viable and need to be recorded (one idea per sticky note). When students are done ask one person from each group to put each sticky note up on the board (randomly). Ask these students to quickly categorize the excuses. Example: SCHOOL EXCUSES, BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE EXCUSES, HOME EXCUSES) The resulting chart is called an Affinity Diagram. Here area few pictures of students working on an Affinity Diagram:

ACTIVITY TWO
Once students have categorized their excuses, have the class rank their (each students does their own personal list) most used excuses. Rank #1-20 (depending on the number of excuses on the Affinity Diagram), with #1 being the most frequently used excuse. Students then go up to the Affinity Diagram and put numbers on the excuse (Example: put a "3" on the excuse that is their third most used excuse).

ACTIVITY THREE
Look at the Affinity Diagram information and identify the student's top five excuses. Draw a Fishbone Diagram to analyze the excuse. The Fishbone Diagram will list six excuses on the bones of the diagram- the "title" will be written on the "head" of the fish. Off each bone, give four reasons for using the excuse.

ACTIVITY FOUR
Look over the Fishbone Diagram. Ask the class to identify a reoccurring reason for their excuses. For example, do your excuses often put blame on someone else?-your mom, your teacher, your school?). This "Root Cause" will be the area that the student will focus on for the goal setting activity. From this point on, students will apply the activity to their own personal excuses (not the class as a whole).

ACTIVITY FIVE
As a class, discuss what happens when we give excuses.
Students will use the "Excuse Buster Goal Sheet" to:

- identify their root cause for making excuses
- identify a situation that they are most likely to make an excuse in
- consider excuses that relate to schoolwork, household chores, visiting relatives, friendships. Students will need to tell why they think they make that particular excuse over and over again
set a goal and strategy to help them eliminate that particular excuse from their lives. Discuss what "measurable", realistic goals are.

- I am most likely to make excuses when:

- Here are some of the reasons I think I make excuses:

- The excuse that I would like to use less is:

- Here is my game plan (exactly "how" will you "bust" this excuse?":

- How will I know when I've met my goal?

- I will check my progress by (date):

Students will store this sheet in a file or notebook for future reference. Assessing their progress should be an ongoing activity throughout the year. Once they have a handle on this excuse, they may want to begin the process of "busting" another excuse!