Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: The influence of human nature

20 minutes

Find Out: Explore what motivates how we respond

25 minutes

Take Action: How can we encourage a culture of giving to all people?

5 minutes

Reflection

Tune In: The influence of human nature

Step 1

Ask your students to look at the following images (available on the Student worksheet) and imagine they’ve been asked by their family to clean at least one room in their house before heading out for the day.

Discuss using the following prompts:

Your own bedroom. It’s a little bit messy.

The family kitchen. It looks like this, and the rest is worse after a party your family had last night.

Which room do you clean? Why?
Finishing which task would have the most impact on your life?
What would influence how quickly you would complete the task?

Step 2

Ask your students to imagine that their mum or dad has asked them and their 3 siblings to clean up 1 room together, and they will get a reward for completing whatever task they choose.

Which room do you choose?
Why?
Does how simple the job is or how many people are completing it influence how willing you are to tackle it?
Which task would have the most impact on the most number of people?
Does that change their answer?

Step 3

Explain to students that there are many things that influence how we respond in situations where our help or support is required. This can be as simple as cleaning your room or as big as giving to different causes or people in need.

Our desire to contribute in any situation can be affected by how close the issue is to us, who it will impact and how much, how complex the issue is and how many people are along with us for the ride.

Find Out: Explore what motivates how we respond

Step 1

Watch the following video (2:10 mins) with your students, which details the story of Jessica McClure, ‘Baby Jessica’, who fell down a well in West Texas in 1987, and the resulting community support for her and her family during her rescue and care.

35 years later: What happened to Baby Jessica? - NewsWest 9 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOpONLI9nVs)

Explain to your students that the outpouring of support, media coverage and financial assistance for Jessica and her family was huge. She even had a trust fund set up in her name that she could access when she was 25 years old, with over 1 million dollars gifted from all over the world.

Invite your students to use the questions on their student worksheet to reflect on this situation.

How do you think news of this situation spread across the world?
Why do you think so many people wanted to help baby Jessica and her family?

Possible responses:

Extensive media coverage: National and international news outlets provided live updates, and the 58-hour dramatic rescue operation was broadcast on television, drawing widespread attention to the situation.
Sense of community: The incident brought the local community together, with volunteers, rescue workers, and emergency responders working tirelessly to save the child. This sense of community solidarity resonated with people everywhere.
Emotional connection: People could relate to the fear and suffering experienced by a small child in such a frightening and life-threatening situation and could easily have empathy for Jessica and her family. This emotional connection led many to want to help in any way they could.
Sympathy for the costs of medical expenses: People were eager to help Jessica recover from the multiple surgeries and cover the cost of her medical treatments.
Publicity and fundraising campaigns: Various fundraising campaigns were organised to collect gifts for Baby Jessica's medical bills and future needs. These campaigns were often publicised through mainstream media, social networks, and word of mouth, making it easy for people to contribute.
Captivating story: The story of a young child trapped in a well captured the hearts of people around the world. It was a compelling human interest story that evoked feelings of empathy and concern.

Step 2

Explain to your students that in the same two days that this incident was occurring, nearly 70,000 children died from preventable, poverty-related causes around the world.

Discuss the discrepancies in these situations using the following prompts

Is the life of Jessica more important than the lives of those children?
Why do you think people from all around the world don’t have the same urgency of action for this issue as they did with Jessica?

Possible responses:

Emotional connection: People can have a strong emotional connection with high-profile individual stories like Jessica's. They involve relatable, dramatic, and immediate situations. We feel a direct emotional connection to an individual child in danger, but the concept of world hunger can feel more abstract.
Media coverage: Dramatic and emotional stories are more likely to receive extensive media coverage, while complex and ongoing issues like hunger often receive less attention. The media also gave the situation a sense of drama and used its coverage to build tension. Human beings naturally have a desire to resolve stories that are suspenseful to help ensure a happy ending.
Concrete result: The rescue of the girl was something that people could witness directly, even if through the airwaves.
Geographic and cultural closeness: A local or national story may get more attention because it directly impacts your community or country, whereas global issues like hunger can feel more distant and detached.
Immediate impact: In many high-profile cases, there is a clear and immediate need for support. For example, in the case of Jessica, there was an urgent need for her rescue and medical treatment. Addressing global hunger requires complex and long-term solutions, which can seem less urgent and harder to tackle.
Attention: High-profile stories often dominate the news cycle, making it challenging for other important issues like hunger to receive the same level of attention.
Complexity: Global hunger is a complex problem with no easy solutions. It involves political, economic, and social factors that are difficult to address. This complexity can make it less appealing for individuals looking for straightforward ways to make a difference.

Step 3

Ask students to read this article Why don’t people help others more? – part 1 from the 80,000 Hours Blog. The article draws on the psychology outlined in Peter Singer's book The Life You Can Save to address why people don’t help as much as they can when it comes to international issues requiring assistance and aid.

As students read, ask them to answer the questions in their Student Worksheet.

Explain the 3 things that impact why people don’t help more. Use the research and examples in the article to support your answer.

Suggested responses:

People don't feel a personal connection to the issue or person
People don't think they can make a big enough difference which prevents them from wanting to help at all
People don't see it as their responsibility to help if they assume others will

2. What are the 3 things that can be done to encourage people to help more, and why each works.

Suggested responses:

Present people with a single, identifiable victim whom they can help. People are more motivated to help if they can feel a personal connection with the victim.
Appeal to their emotions. Heightened emotional responses encourage altruistic behaviour.
Instil a sense of responsibility to help and an understanding that doing so is not futile. The diffusion of responsibility, better known as the bystander effect, means we help more often when we think it is our responsibility to do so. When there are lots of people who could also help in a certain situation, we naturally look to others to see if they’re helping before doing so ourselves.

Take Action: How can we encourage a culture of giving to all people?

To give some context around this Take Action and the resources students will use in the following steps, you might like to explain to your students that this lesson builds off of the work of an organisation called The Life You Can Save. The Life You Can Save works to eliminate poverty. They conduct research to identify non-profits running highly impactful programs that address the multiple dimensions of poverty. They also help connect people who want to donate money and resources with these non-profits to maximise the impact of their gifts. They aim to create a world where everyone has an opportunity to build a great life and where there’s no suffering or death due to extreme poverty.

Step 1

Divide your students into groups of 2-3 to read the following article from the World Food Program USA: How Much Would It Cost to End World Hunger?

Encourage students to note down the total overall costs of ending world hunger, as well as the cost of helping just 1 person.

Step 2

Your class’s task is to design a piece of communication aimed at an audience of their choosing (perhaps one where they think they could have the biggest impact), encouraging this audience to take action on the issue of world hunger. Students should use the strategies they discovered in the Find Out section to plan their communication.

A poster explaining that people should give to a specific person might have a little bit of impact. However, to have an even bigger impact, students might focus on a particular person or community who is receiving the aid and use a particular nonprofit that is helping effectively, as well as mentioning the impact of that nonprofit to encourage more empathy and action.

Depending on the time you have available to complete this task, students could complete a plan for their communication, or they could completely flesh out their ideas to create posters, videos and presentations.

Some helpful resources for students:

Reflection

Invite your class to reflect on today's lesson by using the Circles of Action Visible Thinking Routine on their student worksheet.

What can I do to contribute to the issues we have been discussing today?

In my inner circle (of friends, family, the people I know)?
In my community (my school, my neighbourhood)?
In the world (beyond my immediate environment)?

Encourage students to think beyond financial contributions. What can they do on a day-to-day basis to encourage a culture of giving in the range of communities they find themselves in?

How Does Human Nature Influence Global Action?

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