Big Changes Big Choices: Preventing Violence and Conflicts DVD

Grades 5-9

Young adolescents will learn:

• How conflicts escalate, and what they can do to prevent that from happening.
• How their attitudes and behaviors can exacerbate the problem.
• Not to tolerate violence.
• That violence is a choice, not an inevitability, and that they have the power to avoid it in most cases.
• Ways of dealing with anger.

With the persistent climate of conflict and violence in our schools and communities, this program challenges the underlying attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that cause most of the trouble. We look at how conflicts typically develop and how fights can be avoided. Insults and other disrespectful behaviors are discouraged. Kids are urged to find ways of controlling their anger, and to realize that violence is always a choice, a very bad choice.

About the Big Changes Big Choices Series

In Big Changes, Big Choices comedian/teen counselor Michael Pritchard helps young adolescents discover that they have the power and the responsibility to make the right choices for themselves. The TV cameras follow him to middle schools in different regions of the U.S. as he thrills his young listeners with unusual humor about growing up, and engages groups of teens in highly productive problem-solving sessions about serious issues that affect their lives.

Each volume in the series is approximately 25 minutes in length. A printable teaching guide is included on each video which contains discussion questions, writing assignments, and follow-up activities that support the lesson.