Defining Power: Understanding How Power Shapes Change

re-Work: Set the Frame (5 minutes)

• Introduce the activity by saying: “Power is part of every relationship, community, and system. Sometimes power is used to control or exclude people. Other times, power is used to create safety, healing, belonging, and change. Today we are going to look more closely at different kinds of power”
• Connect to the museum: “In the Courage Museum, visitors explore how violence is shaped by relationships, culture, history, and systems. To understand harm and change, we also need to understand power
• Clarify:
  • Power is not automatically good or bad
  • Everyone has some form of power
  • Power can be visible or invisible
  • Power can be used responsibly or harmfully

Warm-Up: What Comes to Mind When You Hear “Power”? (7–10 minutes)

• Ask students to write the word power in the center of a page
• Invite them to add:
  • Words
  • Images
  • Feelings
  • People
  • Places
  • Systems
  • Symbols
  • Examples from school, media, family, history, or community life
• Then ask students to share with a partner:
  • What did you write or draw?
  • Did power feel positive, negative, or both?
  • Where do you notice power in everyday life?
• Invite a few whole-class share-outs.

Create two columns on the board:

• Power that harms
• Power that helps
  • Add student examples as they share.

Mini-Lesson: Two Big Categories of Power (10 minutes)

• Introduce two broad categories:
  • Dominating Power: Power used to control, silence, exclude, threaten, punish, or limit other people’s choices.
    • Examples might include:
      • Bullying or intimidation
      • Unfair rules
      • Discrimination
      • Controlling relationships
      • Systems that deny people resources or safety
      • Social pressure that makes people afraid to be themselves
  • Transformational Power: Power used to create safety, connection, healing, fairness, belonging, or change.
    • Explain that transformational power can show up in several ways:
      • Power within: the strength, dignity, voice, imagination, and self-belief inside a person
      • Power with: the power people build together through trust, solidarity, and shared purpose
      • Power to: the ability to take action, make choices, solve problems, or change conditions
      • Power for: the values, vision, or future people are working toward
  • Pause and ask: Which form of power feels easiest to recognize? Which feels hardest?

Core Activity: Sorting Examples of Power (10–15 minutes)

• Give students a set of examples, or ask them to generate their own
• Possible examples:
  • A student speaks up when someone is being excluded
  • A group of friends agrees not to share a harmful post
  • A school rule affects some students more than others
  • A young person asks for help from a trusted adult
  • A community organizes for safer streets
  • A person uses threats to control a romantic partner
  • A class creates shared agreements for difficult conversations
  • A student starts a club to address a problem at school
  • A public figure uses their platform to spread fear
  • A group uses art, music, or storytelling to challenge injustice.
• In pairs or small groups, students sort each example into one or more categories:
  • Dominating power
  • Power within
  • Power with
  • Power to
  • Power for
• Remind students: Some examples may fit more than one category. The goal is not to get the “right” answer. The goal is to explain your thinking.
• Prompts:
  • Who has power in this example?
  • How is power being used?
  • Who is affected?
  • Does this power create harm, healing, exclusion, belonging, fear, or possibility?
  • What would need to shift for power to be used differently?

Small-Group Activity: Build a Power Glossary (15–20 minutes)

• Assign each small group one form of power:
  • Power over
  • Power within
  • Power with
  • Power to
  • Power for
• Each group creates a simple glossary entry that includes:
  • A plainspoken definition
  • One example from school or everyday life
  • One example from history, media, community, or the museum
  • One image, symbol, or metaphor
  • One question this form of power raises
• Example
  • Power with means people working together toward something they care about. It can look like students organizing a peer support group, families advocating for safer schools, or community members showing up for one another after an act of violence
  • Invite groups to post their glossary entries around the room.

Gallery Walk and Whole-Class Reflection (10 minutes)

• Students walk around and read the glossary entries
• Ask them to leave sticky notes with:
  • One connection
  • One question
  • One example they would add
• Bring the class back together and discuss:
  • What did you notice about the different forms of power?
  • Which forms of power show up most often in school?
  • Which forms of power show up in the Courage Museum?
  • How can power contribute to harm?
  • How can power contribute to healing or change?

Reflection & Closing (5–10 minutes)

• Invite students to respond privately:
  • One way I understand power differently now is…
  • One example of power I notice in my life or community is…
  • One form of power I want to practice more is…
  • One way power can be used to build courage is…
• Close with: “Power is not only something people have over others. Power can also live within us, between us, and in the futures we are brave enough to imagine and build”

Educator Support

• Facilitation Tips
  • Keep the focus on patterns, examples, and systems rather than naming or blaming individual students. Encourage students to think about power in everyday interactions as well as larger systems. When examples become emotionally charged, return to the categories and ask: What kind of power is operating here? Who is impacted? What could shift?
• Differentiation
  • Students may write, draw, sort examples, create symbols, or discuss verbally. Provide pre-written examples for students who need more structure. Offer sentence starters such as:
    • “This is an example of power over because…”
    • “This shows power with because…”
    • “Power within might look like…
    • “Power can create harm when…”
    • “Power can create healing when…”
• Assessment
  • Look for students’ ability to define different forms of power, sort examples with reasoning, identify how power affects people and systems, and reflect on how power can be used for positive change

School Support

This activity is generally safe when examples remain developmentally appropriate

If discussion turns toward specific incidents of harm, discrimination, abuse, or unsafe relationships, follow school support and

reporting protocols