Learning Objectives
The Real Game California™ curriculum is divided into four units:
Each of the four units represents a stage of the journey of life, and each stage builds upon the stage before it.
The Facilitator’s Guide breaks each unit into sessions with the following instructional components:
- Overview
- Time
- Learning Objectives
- Performance Indicators
- Materials
- Preparation
- Step-by-Step Guides to Activities
- Discussion Points
- Optional Activities
Unit 1: Making a Living
In this unit, participants are acquainted with basic concepts and terminology associated with the program and with the world of work.
Participants play the first round of the question and answer portion of The Spin Game, which draws on their existing knowledge of the working world. They form groups for working together in future sessions and then they dream by selecting the material things they would like to have and the leisure activities they hope to pursue from the Wish List.
Participants begin to chronicle their journey through the program on their Activity Posters. They randomly choose jobs and learn about the realities of working life (typical days, monthly salaries, and the educational paths they took to reach their positions) as well as the jobs and lifestyle choices of their neighbors. This builds the foundations of an imaginary classroom “community”.
Unit 2: Quality of Life
In this unit, participants learn about some of the perks of working life — namely leisure and vacation time. They also learn about how these perks relate to earnings, different occupations, personal inclination, and educational achievement.
Participants distinguish between the activities that must be done and the ones that they want to do, choosing from many options or creating their own.
Reality strikes when they complete their monthly budgets and compare what they dreamed of owning and doing with what fiscal reality and chance will allow them. Participants learn of the importance of financial planning.
Participants plan a group vacation, including choosing a dream destination, matching dreams with budgetary realities, and researching and reporting on their travels. They also play the The Spin Game again to review and reinforce the material covered in the first two units of the program.
Unit 3: Changes and Choices
Some of the forces shaping the world of work begin to make their presence felt in this unit.
Participants explore their preconceived notions about gender issues at home and in the workplace. They also examine their feelings and perceptions about the occupations to which they have been matched — considering what suits them and exploring avenues that might suit them better.
Harsher realities impose themselves as each group deals with the implications and possibilities of job loss when one of its members discovers he or she has been “let go” from his or her position.
Unit 4: The Personal Journey
With no prior warning, the entire group is rendered jobless. They learn about chance, change, and coping with the unexpected. They then explore how they can create their own businesses and understand the implications of self-employment.
Participants step out of their roles (characters) and back from the future, into their own personal, actual present to integrate their future working lives into the complete picture of their lives, reinforcing the idea of career as the sum total of personal, family, work, and extracurricular events.
Participants are encouraged to draw on everything they have learned from the adult role they played, as well as from all the other roles with which they interacted, regarding career planning, the world of work, and, most importantly, themselves while exploring an ideal occupation. A variety of inventories and assessments provide them with an opportunity to develop a better understanding of themselves. They will then research potential occupations.
They expand on what they have learned and link it to the real world by hosting a Career Day. They invite members of the real working world into the classroom for a session of trading ideas and experiences.
The What I Know About the World of Work survey is given a second time to identify the learning that has taken place during the four units and they play a final round of The Spin Game. The Real Game California™ wraps up with a celebration and presentation of individualized certificates to each participant.
