INTRODUCTION:

This Week 5 Civic Education Lesson Note Grade for Five is prepared based on (Ajogwu(PhD)) Standard Schemes of Work drawn in line with the new Standard Civic Education Curriculum (9-year Basic Edition) by the Nigerian Educational Research & Development Council. Civic Education is one of the major subjects under Religion and National Values (RNV) in the new national curriculum by Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC). The other subjects being Security Education, Social Studies, CRK and IRK. Accordingly, this note is suitable to be delivered in the fourth and fifth week of the third term of the academic year. All necessary components of a standard lesson note have been included.

TO RELIGIOUS & NATIONAL VALUES TEACHERS

Civic Education teachers must understand that their role in the class is much more than making the pupils to simply know and able to list the merits and demerit of negative and positive attitude to work. S/he is a mind changer, a motivator, a patriot and an ardent promoter of patriotism. Especially at this moment of moral decadence when “the popular is seen as the right” and indigenous national values are being defaced; the teacher enjoys the duty of re-orienting the pupils in his/her classes.

TEACHER

SCHOOL

DATE

PERIOD

DURATION

AGE

CLASS: Grade or Primary five

CLASS COMPOSITION

SUBJECT: Civic Education

TOPIC: Attitude to Work – Merits and Demerits of Negative and Positive Attitude to Work

REFERENCE MATERIALS

Ajogwu(PhD), E. L. Standard Scheme of Work in Line with National Curricular(UBE EDITION) for Middle Basic (Primary 4-6). Lesam Educational.

Nigerian Educational Research and Develpment Council (NERDC). (2011). Civic Education for Primary Schools book 5. Lagos: West African Book Publishers Ltd.

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

• Chalk/marker and chalk/white board
• Digital display
• Video clip, slides or poster and narration of:
  • (Played at step 1: Introduction) Two childhood friends who grew up together, went to the same school, and got the same job in the same company. However, at the place of work, while one receives accolades, the other receives serial query.
    • (played at step _: ______) After one of the company’s award ceremony in which the hardworking friend was promoted and the other demoted, the demoted friend asks his promoted friend to tell him the secret of his success. (See narration)

ENTRY BEHAVIOR

The pupils are expected to be able to differentiate between worker’s inefficiency which is caused by bad attitude to work and that caused by poor work environment (conditions). The pupils are also expected to have been taught that in the event of the later, the workers’ union may intervene.

OBJECTIVES

Civic Education teachers must understand that their role in the class is much more than making the pupils to simply know and able to list the merits and demerit of negative and positive attitude to work. S/he is a mind changer, a motivator, a patriot and an ardent promoter of patriotism. Especially at this moment of moral decadence when “the popular is seen as the right” and indigenous national values are being defaced; the teacher enjoys the duty of re-orienting the pupils in his/her classes.

At the end of this lesson, the pupils should show the following behavioural objectives.

COGNITIVE: List negative and positive attitudes to work as well as the advantages and disadvantages.

AFFECTIVE: Apply what they learn to their school work. Thus they are expected to exhibit the positive attitude to their school work.

PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE

In the preceding week, the pupils learned the Disadvantages of Pressure Groups to Government.

METHOD OF TEACHING

The teacher shall teach the topic by Discussion and Chalk and Talk method using the recommended instructional materials.

TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES

The teacher shall source and arrange necessary instructional materials. S/he shall also give the monitor how the pupils apply what they learn to their school work (Evaluation of Affective Behavioural Objective).

LEARNERS’ ACTIVITIES

The pupils shall participate actively in the lesson by partaking in class discussion and asking and answering questions. They shall also carry out the evaluation activities.

PRESENTATION

The lesson is presented as in the following steps:

Step 1: Introduction

To introduce the topic, the teacher defines attitude after asking pupils’ idea:

Attitude means the way someone behaves towards something, somewhere or another person because of what the person believes or thinks.

That means attitude to work means the way someone behave towards his/her work. It could also mean the way the pupils behave toward their school work or chores at home.

The teacher thereafter explains that some people (and pupils) behave well but others behave the wrong way towards their work. S/he then asks which is better: good or bad attitude. The pupils should spontaneously say good attitude. To which the teacher respond by asking why it is good to have good attitudes to work. It is anticipated that the pupils will find it challenging to list a couple. Then the teacher informs that they shall learn not only more reasons for showing good attitude to work but also a list of both good and bad attitudes and the consequences o each. This will help us to choose which to practice and how we can avoid the other.

(S/he tells them that they shall learn this in a short video/story. Hence, that they should watch and listen very attentively)

S/he then plays the video clip and narrates each major scene of the video clip or as the teacher unfolds the poster/chart. After the award ceremony (but before the promoted advises the demoted friend i.e. scene 14  from our narration), the teacher pause the clip/cuts the narration. Thereafter, s/he asks the pupils:

• Which of the two friends was promoted, which was demoted?
• What they think made the company to promote one of the friends but demote the other: Do they (the company or directors) hate the demoted friend? Or did the promoted bribe the directors to promote him?

After receiving differing answers from pupils, it is expected that the class will agree on a common reason: The one that receives promotion works better (because he has better attitude to work) while the one that was demoted contributes lesser to the organization (also because he has bad attitude to work). Afterwards, the teacher proceeds to step 2.

Step 2: Bad Attitudes to Work

Upon agreement on different attitudes to work to have been reason for the promotion of one and demotion of the other friends, the teacher teaches the pupils that every employer (including the government) employs people to contribute to the growth of their business. That in fact, in all matters, we (human beings) are only required for only as long as they can contribute to the growth of the person, place or business we find ourselves with. And that should be their criteria for making friends or any involvement henceforth – make friend only with someone that contribute to your growth and development either physically, academically or otherwise. That contribute to a person, place or business, we must have the right attitude.

Back to the lesson, the teacher (with reference to the clip or narration) asks what bad attitudes prevented the demoted friend from contributing to the growth of the company, thus his demotion. S/he writes on the board as the pupils list:

• Coming late to work – this is called
• Regularly absenting from work – which is
• Being lazy or unwilling to work –
• Sleeping on duty.
• Leaving the place of work (office) before official closing time –
• Lying (telling lie) and being straight forward in the place of work – Dishonesty.

At the end, the teacher explains each of them thoroughly noting that all of the above mentioned attitudes are hindrances to efficiency at the place of work.

Step 3: Good Attitudes to Work

After discussion on the bad attitudes, the teacher asks the pupils what attitudes they think the promoted friend in the narration exhibits that made him contribute to the growth of the company leading to his award and promotion. That they should be the opposite of what the demoted friend did.

• Coming to work early – Punctuality
• Not absenting from work deliberately – Regularity
• Telling the truth and being straightforward – Honesty
• Giving your best and time to do something very well – Dedication or Devotion.
• Working with one mind and heart (undivided loyalty) –

S/he encourages the pupils to deliberately avoid them starting from that moment. They should keep up with all appointments and punctual to school, should not miss school or fail to perform duties avoidably and learn not to procrastinate. They should not stay up too late at night so as to sleep in the class or public place[1] , they must not be a truant neither should they tell lies.

Remark: This admonition should raise questions or pupils contribution which the teacher should appropriately deal with.

Step 4: Consequences of Negative Attitude to Work

Having now learned both the negative and positive attitude to work, the teacher leads the pupils to identify the consequences of negative attitude to work. With reference to the friend that was demoted in the video, s/he asks the pupils to mention what he got as a result of his negative attitude to work:

• Failure to meet target – without right attitude to work, workers will fail to meet their goals (of contributing to the company/business).
• Inefficiency or wastage of resources – if a worker cannot meet the goals of his office, s/he will be wasting his employer’s resources (such as salary). That means the worker is unproductive.
• Punishment – employers do not want workers that waste resources so they punish unproductive workers by query and demotion.
• Anxiety – when a worker is unproductive, s/he will always be afraid of being punished so he worries most of the time. Also punishment makes them angry and worried.
• Poor relationship with co-workers – many people hate bad things. People usually avoid someone that does bad things or has bad attitudes. Workers that have bad attitude to work make enemy of co-workers. They make good co-workers angry. And when the good co-workers (and boss) try to correct them, they complain that the co-workers hate them so they are often hold grudges.

NOTE: Teacher should lead pupils to identify these points instead of outright listing on the board.

Step 5: Consequences of Good Attitude to Work

The teacher once again refers the pupils to the promoted friend at introduction stage and asks the pupils to list the advantages of good attitude to work:

• Promotion
• Increase in productivity
• Joy and happiness
• Respect
• Improve relationship with co-workers

EVALUATION

The teacher evaluates the pupils in two ways.

For cognitive objectives: by questioning exercise (orally or written as class or homework). Questions are provided under Assignment.

For affective objective: by journalizing exercise.

Journalizing Exercise for pupils

In order to encourage the pupils to put what they had learned into practice and/or to assess this, the teacher gives them this exercise of creating personal journal or diary.

Let the class (teacher and pupils) agree on a daily meeting time. At this time, each pupil shall bring their diary or an exercise book meant for this purpose. On it, they shall record the time they resume school or arrived at the meeting point for each day, whether they did their daily homework and whether they met their targets for each home work (getting a minimum of pass mark). Let this be done every day for at least one week. When the class meets, each pupil should read his/her record to the class.

From here they will know the punctual pupils and those that shows good attitude to their school (home) work. If the teacher observes very well, s/he MAY be able to even identify honest ones as some may fake their records so as to prove themselves to the class. The diary should be drawn in the format below:

SUMMARY

At the end of the class, the teacher summarizes the lesson into a concise note for the pupils to write. The teacher once more revises the lesson with the pupils after note writing. The board summary of the class is given below.

ATTITUDES TO WORK

Attitude means the way someone behaves towards something, somewhere or another person because of what the person believes or thinks.  Attitude to work means the way someone behaves towards his/her work.

Some people have bad attitude to work while others has good.

GOOD ATTITUDES TO WORK

A good attitude to work is the behaviours of a worker to his or her work which brings profit and growth to a business or employer and the worker.  Good attitude to work include:

• Punctuality – Coming to work early.
• Regularity – Not absenting from work deliberately
• Honesty – Telling the truth and being straightforward
• Dedication or Devotion – Giving your best and time to do something very well
• Commitment – Working with one mind and heart (undivided loyalty).

BENEFITS OF GOOD ATTITUDES TO WORK

Good attitude to work benefits both the worker and the business or company she or he works for. Some of the benefits of good attitude to work include:

• Promotion
• Increase in productivity
• Joy and happiness
• Respect
• Improve relationship with co-workers

BAD ATTITUDES TO WORK

Bad attitude to work is the behaviour of a worker to his or her work which brings loss to a business, company and the worker. Some of the bad attitudes to work include:

• Coming late to work – this is called
• Regularly absenting from work – which is
• Being lazy or unwilling to work –
• Sleeping on duty.
• Leaving the place of work (office) before official closing time –
• Lying (telling lie) and being straight forward in the place of work – Dishonesty.

DISADVANTAGES OR DEMERITS OF BAD ATTITUDES TO WORK

Bad attitudes to work are disadvantageous both to the business, company and the worker. Some of the demerits of bad attitudes to work include the following:

• Failure to meet target – without right attitude to work, workers will fail to meet their goals (of contributing to the company/business).
• Inefficiency or wastage of resources – if a worker cannot meet the goals of his office, s/he will be wasting his employer’s resources (such as salary). That means the worker is unproductive.
• Punishment – employers do not want workers that waste resources so they punish unproductive workers by query and demotion.
• Anxiety – when a worker is unproductive, s/he will always be afraid of being punished so he worries most of the time. Also punishment makes them angry and worried and the company always worries of jobs left in his/her care.
• Poor relationship with co-workers – many people hate bad things. People usually avoid someone that does bad things or has bad attitudes. Workers that have bad attitude to work make enemy of co-workers. They make good co-workers angry. And when the good co-workers (and boss) try to correct them, they complain that the co-workers hate them so they are often hold grudges.

ASSIGNMENT

The cognitive objective of the lesson is evaluated by asking the pupils the following questions. This may be done orally or given to them as class or home work.

1. _________ means the way someone behaves towards something, somewhere or another person because of what the person believes or thinks.
   1. Attitude to work
   2. Attitude to duty
   3. Attitude
   4. All of the above
2. Coming late to work is the same as ____________________________
   1. Truancy
   2. Laziness
   3. Unpunctuality
   4. Punctuality
3. One merit of good attitudes to work is _________________________
   1. Demotion
   2. Efficiency
   3. Anxiety
   4. Lower productivity
4. List three reasons why you think we should show good attitude to work
   1. _________________________
   2. ________________________
   3. _________________________
5. Mention four points with which you may discourage a worker that shows bad attitude to work
   1. ______________________________________
   2. _____________________________________
   3. ____________________________________
   4. ___________________________________

CONCLUSION

The lesson is concluded by marking the pupils’ notes and advising the pupils to imbibe good attitude to their school work while revising the lesson at the same time. The teacher also links the lesson to the following week’s topic:

Having learned a list of good and bad attitudes to work and their merits and demerits, next week, we shall discuss one of the most important good attitudes to work: Hard work and Diligence

[1] Some kids sleeping in the class may be as a result of sleep disorder. Teacher should work with parents in handling class nap or sleeping disorder among pupils.