I am posting this edition of Teaching Tip Tuesdays as an activity you can do with your students. I will be doing this today with my class. If you try it out, let me know how it works in the comments below.

Will Smith is an actor, rapper, and songwriter. This is one of his most popular songs.

He posted the following video to his Instagram last week.

He says, “The road to power is in taking responsibility. Your heart, your life, your happiness, is your responsibility and your responsibility alone.”

He closes off saying, “Taking responsibility is a recognition of the power that you seize when you stop blaming people.”

Please pick one of the topics below and write a 2-3 paragraph response.

Accepting Responsibility

What do you think of what he has to say in this video? Use examples from your own life or experience about a time when you accepted responsibility or a time that you didn’t. Would you do anything differently now?

Age and Responsibility

Write about the relationship between your age and level of responsibility. How do responsibilities differ for people your age verses those of adults or younger children? How has your sense of responsibility changed as you have gotten older? At what age should we become totally responsible and accountable for our actions?

Parents Don’t Understand

How did Will Smith’s character in the music video show responsibility? Do you think he should have acted differently in some of those scenarios? How does Will Smith use humour to tell this story and get you thinking? Have you had any similar experiences?

Acting Responsibly

Write at least five things you could say to yourself when you are tempted to act irresponsibly. Explain the meaning and significance of each.

Learning from Mistakes

Describe something you’ve done that was really irresponsible. How did you feel afterward? What did you learn from it?

More Tips

Teaching Tip Tuesdays – a regular feature on this blog to share inspiration and ideas from my classroom to yours

I haven’t been writing this series on a weekly basis for the past little while. I apologize about that. I have been extremely busy, but plan to get back into the routine now. At the every least, I will add a new post to this series monthly. So stay tuned. Thank you!