Can you guess Aristotle’s opinion on Instagram followers and Facebook friends? Turns out, he gives us a pretty good answer. What do you think makes a good friendship? How many friends can we have? Try to apply old ideas to modern concepts of friendship.
This lesson plan comprises 5 sessions — each of which can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes. Sessions include the following:
- Excerpts from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics on friendship.
- Highlighted keywords and commentary to help clarify as you read.
- Vocabulary exercises.
- Socratic questions to start discussion.
- Modern friendship profiles to examine and compare to Aristotle’s friend types.
- Overview of research on human capacity for friendships from evolutionary anthropologists. Compares research to Aristotle’s friend types and allows kids to apply it to their own lives in a friendship spectrum activity.
- Discover how friendships correlate with social skills and how practice can make social interaction easier.
- A final project to encourage communication with those considered a close friend.
- Workbook activities that help solidify concepts learned such as decode the message and an islands puzzle.
- Available in printed soft-back or ebook. Both include a link to a printable PDF.
