Life Skills Program
Hisham Mohammad
Hisham Mohammad was born with spinal atrophy, a condition that causes severe muscle weakness. Rehabilitation services were almost non-existent in his native Saudi Arabia and finding even basic equipment like a wheelchair was difficult.
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The Life Skills Program enables teachers to help grade K-12 students to understand and use the skills essential to successful, well-rounded personal lives and careers. The program is designed to provide students with opportunities to learn about seven critical life skill areas, including:Understanding Oneself, Communicating and Relating to Others, Accessing and Using Information, Solving Problems and Making Decisions, Living with and Initiating Change, Setting Goals, Making and Enacting Plans, Career Development
To Access Life Skills Materials please click on the appropriate links below.
Program Organizer The program organizer includes a welcome to the BC Life Skills Program from Rick Hansen along with an overview of the program creation, and instructions for use.
Program Organizer Document (pdf file)
Book 1 - Understanding Oneself
Personal understanding is a prerequisite to all major life skills. In this program particular emphasis is placed on developing students' skills of reflection and analysis, which can lead to a growing awareness of what, why, and how we think: emotions and attitudes; and personal circumstances, experiences , and actions.
K-7 Program (pdf file)
8-12 Program (pdf file)
Book 2 - Communicating With and Relating to Others
Skills in this area will help students understand and develop relationships; resolve conflicts; work effectively with others; develop good communication skills; grow in empathy, compassion, and honesty; and understand their rights and responsibilities in a diverse society.
8-12 Program (pdf file)
Book 3: Accessing and Using Information
Given the changing nature of our world and the increasing amount, complexity, and specialization of information, students must develop skills in locating, retrieving, and critically evaluating information - skills that are essential to solving problems, making decisions, and finding and using support systems.
K-7 Program (pdf file)
8-12 Program (pdf file)
Book 4: Living with and Initiating Change
Students must learn about the nature of change. This involves coming to understand that change is a lifelong and predictable process, that it affects relationships, and that it affects people differently. To live with change, students must be able to analyse what is happening during change and the reasons for it, share their feelings about change, provide and receive support, cope with stress, and intervene in the process of change to direct it toward a desirable outcome. Students must also be able to recognize when change is required and then to describe the desired outcome, establish a process to move toward the desired outcome, and finally, assess whether the desired outcome has been achieved.
K-7 Program (pdf file)
8-12 Program (pdf file)
Book 5: Solving Problems and Making Decisions
To become proficient problem-solvers and decision-makers, students must be able to recognize and clarify problems, dilemmas, or issues; generate, analyse, select, and implement alternatives; and evaluate and, if necessary, revise a course of action. Students' application of these skills can facilitate their understanding and skill acquisition, as well as give them the confidence they will need to find solutions to increasingly complex questions.
K-7 Program (pdf file)
8-12 Program (pdf file)
Book 6: Setting Goals, Making and Enacting Plans
The lessons in this life skill area will help students identify goals, anticipate challenges, imagine success, "map" plans, put plans into action, evaluate their progress, adjust and revise their plans as required, and celebrate successes. Students will make carefully thought-out choices as they set personal goals and develop and implement plans for achieving them. The quality of the choices they make will depend on their facility with all the life skills in this program.
K-7 Program (pdf file)
8-12 Program (pdf file)
Book 7: Career Development
Contains short, dynamic activities that promote thinking and discussion related to career development for teachers of grades 8 to 12.
8-12 Program (pdf file)
