Activities Ideas

Balancing The Broomstick

Time: 3-5 minutes

Materials:  A broom and a watch or clock with a second hand.

Objective: Help students realize how focusing only on the present prevents them from making healthy decisions.

Activity Steps:

1. Select a student to do the demonstration.
2. Instruct the student to hold out their index finger, and balance the broom on their finger with the tip of the stick end of the broom on the student's finger.
3. Instruct the student to try to balance the broomstick while looking down where the stick rests on the finger.  Time the balancing.  It will probably be under five seconds.
4. Have the student repeat the demonstration.  This time, the student should look about two-thirds of the way to the top of the broomstick while trying to balance.  The student should be better able to balance it.  Time the balancing.  It will probably be about twice as much time as before.  It is all right to fudge the time a little for the sake of the point.
5. Explain the connection between this demonstration and tobacco use (see The Connection, below).
6. Have students give examples of goals they have set for their futures, even the near future.
7. Discuss or write the way the decision to use tobacco might interfere with those goals.

The Connection: Looking at the bottom of the broomstick is similar to making decisions based on the present without looking ahead to the future.  Students may choose to use tobacco (or other drugs) today without examining the ways these behaviors might affect the future.  Such a choice will eventually lead to loss of control and there will be undesirable consequences (even early death in this case).  

Looking two-thirds of the way to the top was similar to making decisions in which the present needs are examined in light of goals that have been set for the future or making a decision about what you need now while thinking about what you may want in five or ten years.

The student who makes a decision to stop using tobacco now and avoids going to parties where substances are used recognizes that these behaviors will interfere with his or her future.  it is easier to balance the broomstick by looking ahead, and it is easier to reach goals when decisions are made while looking to the future.