Hotshots: Odd One Out

more by Jason Gardner | Youth

Title: Odd One Out

NB works better with lower high school years 7-10

Preparation:

You will need two types of same flavour crisp – one ‘quality’ eg Walkers Cheese’n’onion and one cheap brand. Open one of the bags at the bottom – cheap brand would be better and empty contents replacing them with salt’n’vinegar crisps and resealing with clear selotape.

Activity 1:

Ask pupils to close their eyes and keep them closed while they respond to some questions:

Ask them to ‘stick their hand up if they’re in year 8 ‘ or appropriate year.
‘stick your hand up if you’ve had a birthday recently’
‘stick your hand up if you like Natasha Bedingfield’s music’
‘Stick your hand up if you fancy someone in this school’

After this exercise say: That was interesting but when the questions got more personal there were more of you sneaking a peak to see if anybody else had stuck up their hand as well.

Activity 2:

Say ‘I’ve got another activity now but in order to do it I need three people who can really distinguish between quality and cheap brands by tasting. Who’s got discerning taste buds?’
Get three people on stage and say – ‘here are the Cheese’n’ Onion crisps I want you to distinguish between’ Open the packets and put them in to two similar bowls in front of their eyes, remember which is which and switch them around getting them to turn their backs to you whilst you do so.
Then get them to do the taste challenge, giving them a better brand ‘real’ cheese’n’ onion crisp first then one from the cheaper bowl.
After they’ve all tasted both of them, get them to say which they thought was the quality brand – the first one or the second one.

If no one says that the second one was salt’n’vinegar, or if only one of them does, ask the others why they didn’t tell you.

If they spot the fake and they all know it’s salt’n’vinegar then commend them on their ability to spot a fake.

Whatever the outcome go on to make the next point:

Talk:

Sometimes it’s just easier to go with the crowd. If you’d been up here and the other two didn’t point out that the second crisp was salt’n’vinegar would you have spoken up or would you have doubted your taste buds, even if you did realise the crisps in the bag had been switched?

Most of the time we don’t like being the odd one out. When I asked you to put your hands in the air earlier and it came to the more personal questions like ‘do you fancy someone in this school’ lots of you opened your eyes to see if others put their hands up before you did.

The crisp challenge was a bit of a laugh but it’s not always easy to be the one that stands up and say when something is wrong when the crowd is saying something different.

So think about when someone’s being bullied or insulted do you go along with it just because everybody else is?

Do you give your teachers a hard time just because everybody else is?

Sometime it’s not easy to be the odd one out and to take a stand but sometimes it’s the only option that’s right.

Further Illustrations:

Christian Perspective:
Retell story of ten lepers Luke 17:11-18. Only one returns to thank Jesus.

Pop Culture Reference:

In 2005 the ‘Space Cadets’ show on Channel four fooled people into believing they were taking a trip on a Space Shuttle. See www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/S/spacecadets/

Lifestory:

Head to www.biography.com and look up the story of someone who stood out from the crowd because of what they believed eg. Bishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated for opposing the government of El Salvador.