What does life goal mean?
Pedagogical guide for educator
This exercise comprises of three separate activities and aims to increase AAWID’s understanding of the “life goal” concept. After the completion of this exercise, AAWID should be able to distinguish “goal” and “dream” and to handle the concept freely, incl. relating it to his personal experience.
Activity 1 “What is the answer?”
This activity contains a story of an aging woman with ID who has just retired and feels like she needs to set up her new “life goal” which to give meaning to her daily life from now on.
Steps:
- AAWID and the educator should read the story very carefully. If needed, the educator could use various techniques to support the AAWID in understanding the essence of the story.
- 2. Then the AAWID is invited to answer four open questions regarding the decisions of the main character and her personal features, as the educator should encourage the aging person to explain in more detail each of his answers.
The idea of this activity is to allow the educator to observe what is the AAWID level of understanding regarding the life goal’s concept.
| Note: The educator must keep in mind that for some people with intellectual disabilities, the concept of „life goal“ may be too abstract and they may have great difficulty with this exercise. In such cases, the educator should devote additional time and attention to thoroughly discuss the notion and the concept behind it. |
Activity 2 “Goal or a dream?”
Steps:
- For the performance of this activity, the educator should first explain in detail what the difference between a goal and a dream is.
- After the explanation, the AAWID should be aware that every goal deprived of deadline and action is only a dream, and that for the dreams the sky is the limit, while the goals should be achievable.
- Then the educator should provide the 8 pictures (printed and cut out in advance) representing different achievements that could be classified either as dreams or goals and to invite AAWID to define which of them he would qualify as dreams and which could be set up as goals, having his own situation in mind.
Activity 3 “What am I good at?
In this activity, AAWID should show how well he has mastered the concept of “life goal” and try to transfer it to his own experience. Here, for the first time, AAWID should try to think in this direction, and for this purpose, he should be encouraged to answer 5 different questions, concerning his strengths and weaknesses, etc.
| Note: The educator must keep in mind that for some people with intellectual disabilities, the concept of „life goal“ may be too abstract and they may have great difficulty with this exercise. In such a case, the educator should devote additional time and attention to thoroughly discuss the notion and the concept behind it. |