Conducting Values Exercises // Them ’n Us
Four corners In this exercise the four corners of the room will represent different standpoints. The leader presents a problem to the participants, or presents an opinion, and gives them three different options and an “open corner”. Example: The nicest thing about summer is • that ice cream melts in the sun • summer rain • Scout camps • open corner – your own suggestion The participants are asked to go to the corner that represents what they agree with. The open corner is not an “I do not know” –corner but a corner for those who think something else, or have another solution – for instance that the best thing about summer is going swimming. If anyone is standing alone in a corner it is recommended that you, as the leader, go to that corner and conduct the exercise from there. This will mark that it is not wrong to be the only person holding a certain view, as it will give support to him or her. Next you ask the participants to talk to each other for a minute or so about why their corner is important. This is what they should focus on, and it is not relevant to know why the other corners are considered less important. If there are many people in one and the same corner, divide them into smaller groups. Then let the groups tell each other what they think and if anyone wants to change corners – change opinion – it is OK once everybody has had a chance to tell why they chose this particular corner. Then the leader gives a new statement with three options and an open corner as before. Remember to make the exercise more difficult step by step, starting with easy, common things like the one above and towards the end building up to ones rather difficult to take a position on. Here are two examples of more difficult statements:
93