Bloom Activity Library

Beneatha: When I was small… we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day…and it was very dangerous, you know… far too steep… and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us… And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and sewed it all up… and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face…. I never got over that… What one person could do for another, fix him up – sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world... I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know – and make them whole again. This was truly being God.

You can make things legal, but you can never make it right! Slavery was once legal. The devastation of our earth for profit is all legal. You can make everything legal, but you can never make it right! If we blow up the world, when we cut down the last tree, it will all be legal. What does this say about us? The earth is what we all have in common. We cannot damage it without damaging ourselves. We are losing 10,000 species a year, the greatest setback on earth since the first flickering of life almost 4 billion years ago. We live by robbing nature but our standard of living demands it. We are unwilling to live within our means; our way of life is predicated on having more than we need. We destroy the land, exhaust its resources, and exploit human labor. How could we have allowed it to get so bad…so wrong…so sick? We’ve got to learn. With every fiber of our beings we must learn to go out there, make a different and make this world a better place.

The doctor whose name graces the film is torn between two loves, that of his wife and that of the woman who inspires his poetry. This film explores the conflict between fidelity and passion in the midst of the Russian Revolution and its impact on a man trying to maintain his humanity.

The secret to high performance and satisfaction at work, at school, and at home is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

This book examines the three elements of true motivation autonomy, mastery, and purpose and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action.

Homer Hickam, a child living in a coal mining town, seems to have no future outside of work in the mines. His curiosity is inspired by the launch of Sputnik, and with the help of some misfit friends he begins to build his own rockets. Though at first the townspeople see his passion as a waste of time, eventually they get a spot in the National Science Awards competition with a chance of winning the prize: a college scholarship.

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning is a habit. Every time a football player goes to play, every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second. It is a reality of life that men are competitive. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules - but to win. I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in men that really yearns for discipline. I firmly believe that any man's finest hour -- his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear -- is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious." - Vince Lombardi

Female Greek Chorus: (As Aunt Mary.) My husband was such a good man – is. Is such a good man. Every night, he does the dishes. The second he comes home, he’s taking out the garbage, or doing yard work, lifting the heavy things I can’t. Everyone in the neighborhood borrows Peck – it’s true – women with husbands of their own, men who just don’t have Peck’s abilities – there’s always a knock on our door for a jump start on cold mornings, when anyone needs a ride, or help shoveling the sidewalk - I look out, and there Peck is, without a coat, pitching in. I know I’m lucky. The man works from dawn to dusk. And the overtime he does every year – my poor sister. She sits every Christmas when I come to dinner with a new stole, or diamonds, or with the tickets to Bermuda. I know he has troubles. And we don’t talk about them. I wonder, sometimes, what happened to him during the war. The men who fought World War II didn’t have “rap sessions” to talk about their feelings. Men in his generation were expected to be quiet about it and get on with their lives. And sometimes I can feel him just fighting the trouble – whatever has burrowed deeper than the scar tissue – and we don’t talk about it. I know he’s having a bad spell because he comes looking for me in the house, and just hangs around me until it passes. And I keep my banter light – I discuss a new recipe, or sales, or gossip – because I think domesticity can be a balm for men when they’re lost. We sit in the house and listen to the peace of the clock ticking in his well-ordered living room, until it passes.

Monitor to catch lies of omission (such as not volunteering important information when selling a used item) and think how you would feel if someone did the same to you. Try to be forthcoming in your dealings with others.

Lt. Daniel Kaffee is a Navy lawyer assigned to defend two Marines accused of murdering a fellow soldier. Though he initially takes a lazy approach and arranges a plea bargain, as he uncovers more of the story he realizes the value of practicing his profession with integrity. The movie climaxes in a confrontation between Kaffee and a superior officer who he believes ordered the murder.

This simple and powerful method is useful for getting to the core of a problem or challenge. As the title suggests, the group defines a problem, then asks the question “why 🤔” five times, often using the resulting explanation as a starting point for creative problem solving.