Story Name:  You do not have to be a Superhero to have Superpowers.  We can create our own Superpowers which will help us have a great life and make the world a better place.

Teacher’s Notes:

a. Key Topic

The story aims at explaining the importance of taking time to do the little things in life, even if it makes us uncomfortable or it is against what is generally considered as ‘cool’.  It is about teaching kids how to act on their knowledge and the importance of good decisions.  All these elements tend to have a ripple effect in life and kids should understand that they will eventually benefit from the compound effect of the positive daily steps they are taking.

b. Concepts Introduced to the kids through the Story

• The ripple effect of small, daily steps (Consistency)
• Knowing Vs Doing (Discipline)
• Making Good Choices
• Consistency, Discipline and Making Good Choices are the Superpowers that kids can create for themselves

c. Learning Objectives for the Kids

• Understand that little things matter
• Plan for ways to do the little things every day
• Develop the habit of acting on their knowledge
• Discover the importance of making good choices

d. Tips for Teaching through Storytelling

When teaching youngsters, we need to use a slightly different approach than when teaching adults, meaning that youngsters relate better to visuals, examples and stories (real life examples/stories are even better) and interactive technology.  Also, young kids do not need a lot of jargon, they need a much simpler vocabulary that they can understand.  In addition, the teacher has to figure out a way to relate to the kids and there are a number of things that can be done in this direction from the type of clothes the teachers wear, to the language they use, the way they move about in the class, etc.

Storytelling is more than just reading the words of a story out loud.  It takes other skills as well.  It is important for teachers to use different tones in their voice when they are telling a story.  If the teacher’s voice stays at the same level, it becomes boring!  The teacher will want their voice to go higher and lower, louder and softer.  Teachers should try to use different voices for different characters and make sure that they speak loud enough so that everyone hears them, and say the words clearly so that everyone can understand them.

Teachers should also have in mind that storytelling is not just words; it is motion as well.  They will have to move around when they tell their story; they should use their arms, legs, hands and their face to tell the story.  In addition, they have to make sure to maintain eye contact with their audience.  Eye contract is one of the most important non-verbal ways to connect with other people.  It helps keep the attention of the audience and it also conveys a sense of confidence and truthfulness.  It is best that teachers always look directly into the kids’ eyes; they will connect with them and keep their attention longer.

e. In-class discussion after the storytelling

• Define Consistency and the ripple effect of small, daily steps and ask the kids for some examples from their daily life.  Follow with a discussion of their examples.
• Define Discipline (doing something because it is good for you even if you don’t feel like doing it) and ask the kids for some examples from their daily life.  Follow with a discussion of their examples.
• Ask the kids the following questions and discuss their answers.  Usually there is time to take and discuss the answers of 2 to 3 kids.

• • What do you think Lucius should do to become the best soccer player in the world?
  • What do you want to be great at and how will you do that?
  • What small things can you do every day to become great at whatever you want to be great at?

The Story

Somewhere in our planet, in a small sunny island called Soccertopia, there lived three friends, Madya, Lucius and Fiducius.  All three friends are around the same age, 6 years old, and they just started Grade 1 at school.  All three of them are crazy about soccer and they play soccer in the local academy “Soccertopia Eagles”, three afternoons a week.  The truth is that all three of them are good at playing soccer and their coach, Mr. Soccerball, knows that they have all it takes to perhaps become international soccer stars one day!

Madya wants to play for the Soccertopia National Soccer team and win an Olympic medal with her team sometime in the future; Lucius dreams about playing at Manchpool one day, one of the best soccer teams in the world and far away from his island; Fiducius’ dreams is to play for Reachelona, again one of the top soccer teams in the world, and far away from the island of Soccertopia.

It is the first month of first grade at school, and Lucius and Fiducius, even though excited to be starting elementary school, they also feel a bit unhappy about regularly having to do homework after school.  What they like to do each afternoon is play soccer; they don’t want to spend time on anything else.   They leave homework to be done after practice and then they are usually tired and don’t feel like doing it at all!  Madya on the other hand sees this homework situation rather differently.  As soon as she goes home, she gets on to doing her homework which does not take her long, usually about an hour, and then she is free to do her soccer practice and anything else she feels like doing.

Their coach, Mr. Soccerball, overhears the three of them discussing the homework situation and Madya trying to convince both of her friends that it is much easier to do homework every day right after school.  He decides to talk to the three friends along with the rest of the Soccertopia Eagles kids to help them do things right from the start of the school year.  He gathers them right before soccer practice and says to them:

-Today we are going to talk about building a great life.  I am sure all of you want to have a great life, don’t you?  So how do you do that? Do you think that you have to be a superhero with superpowers to have a great life or what?  Let’s talk about this.  First, I want you to answer one question:  what is a great life for you?

Lucius immediately jumps in and says:

-Being the best soccer player in the world, winning all soccer competitions and having lots of money to do anything I want.

-And how are you going to do that my boy? asked Mr. Soccerball.

-By practicing and playing soccer every day sir, said Lucius.

-And that alone, will make you the best of the best and earn you a spot in the soccer hall of fame? said Mr. Soccerball.  You need more than that my boy.  Yes, you need to practice daily but you also have to have an education too.  How will you get into soccer college if you don’t have good grades?  You have to remember that you have to have good grades and be good at soccer too.  This is how the system works!

Lucius looks rather frustrated from Mr. Soccerball’s response and says:

-So, what do we do sir?  It is difficult to deal with the homework every day and the daily practice.

-Small steps son, said Mr. Soccerball.  This is what you need to do.  Small daily steps, repeated day-in, day-out.  This is what will get you greatness.  You do an hour of homework, usually it does not take more than that, but you do that every day!  And then you do another hour of soccer practice, again every day.  That does not seem so difficult, does it?  But you have to do it every day.  Because by doing it every day, you get a bit better at it every day.  And then this piles up and after a few years of getting a bit better every day, you actually can become great!

Lucius and the rest of the class looked at Mr. Soccerball with a smile.  Yes, they could actually see what he was talking about and it really did not seem that hard to devote an hour, even a bit more, to homework every day.  And then they could have the rest of the afternoon to themselves to play soccer and do whatever else they wanted.  Yeah, that seemed pretty doable.  But they had to stick to it, every day.  You miss a day of homework and then you will need double the time the next day to catch up.  No, we don’t want that, Lucius admitted to himself.

Mr. Soccerball saw the smiles in the kids’ faces and said:

-So, kids, what do you think?  Are you ready to start building a great life?

All of a sudden you could see a whole bunch of little excited faces and all you could hear was a loud:

-Yes Mr. Soccerball,

On it right away, no excuses made,

Daily work pays, and greatness awaits!

Mr. Soccerball saw the kids’ excitement and decided to take this a bit further.  He said:

-Now, you all know what to do.  But I want you to remember one thing:  knowing what to do isn’t the same as doing it.  There will be times that you will feel tired and not in the mood to do homework and, believe me, even though you know that you have to do it, you will find one zillion excuses, not to.  You will tell yourself that it is OK to rest now and do it later, or tomorrow, or perhaps during the weekend.  That will be the easy thing to do.  But what seems easy at the time, can eventually cause you a lot of trouble.  Because the same way the good effort and daily work pile up to make you better, no effort at all can make homework pileup to the point where you feel buried under piles of homework.  You will need a lot of time to catch up, you will probably have to spend your weekends doing homework and miss all the fun with your friends who are outdoors playing and having a good time; so just knowing that you have to keep doing something daily, means nothing if you don’t actually get to doing it.

-So, kids, I think we can create our own superpowers by taking action, making good choices and repeatedly doing what we have to do, said Mr. Soccerball.

Madya, being the organized student that she is, immediately grasps this and says:

Knowledge is good to have

But action gets you far!

-That’s right Madya, said Mr. Soccerball.  We all know what is good for us but that doesn’t do us any good if we don’t put it into action.  It is all a matter of making the choice of putting into action what we know is good for us and for our lives.  Making good choices eventually pays off.  It helps us become better people and if we all become better people, we can actually create a better world.  What do you think about this?  If we all make good choices and become better people, we can actually change the world and make it a better one!  Now, how does that sound?  Great right?  Each one of us creating their own superpowers and using them to change the world!

The kids got very excited and Madya started singing and the rest of the kids followed:

Better choices made, better people create

Who all together make, the world a better place!