Tapestry of Faith: Virtue Ethics: An Ethical Development Program for High School Youth

Activity 2: Loyalty Bingo

Part of Virtue Ethics

Activity time: 20 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Handout 1, Bingo Grid
  • Leader Resource 1, Bingo Chips
  • A bowl or basket
  • Pencils
  • Bingo board markers (e.g. pennies), and (optional) bowls for youth to share

Preparation for Activity

  • Print Handout 1 for all participants, plus a few extra.
  • Using Leader Resource 1, make 16 blank bingo chips for each participant.
  • Collect or make bingo board markers. Each youth will need at least 16. Any small item can be a marker: Use pennies, or pieces from old board games. Or, make additional copies of Leader Resource 1, Bingo Chips on different colors of paper, and cut out these chips to use as markers. You might put these in additional bowls the youth can share.

Description of Activity

Participants compare their loyalties to those of their peers by creating and playing a game.

Distribute Handout 1, Bingo Grid and pencils. Ask youth to fill in all the spaces on the grid with someone or something they are loyal to, however they define loyalty. It can be a sports team, a friend, a group (like "my school band"), an activity (such as "scouting"), a cause ("environmentalism") or an ideal or value ("honesty"). Prompt by repeating the definition of loyalty: "faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, cause, commitments, obligations, etc... ".

Ask participants to use generic terms, for example, "my sibling" instead of "Eric." If youth have trouble filling 16 boxes, encourage them to break down some items. Instead of saying, "my family," if someone has two moms, a brother, and a cousin, they can put each person in a separate box.

Important: No peeking! Everyone should fill out their grid independently and not share it.

Give the group five minutes or until you see they are done.

Give each participant 16 of the blank chips you made from Leader Resource 1, Bingo Chips. Ask participants to copy what they wrote on each square on their bingo grid onto a bingo chip.

Collect all the chips and put them in the bowl.

Distribute bingo sheet markers and invite participants to play bingo.

Mix up the chips in the bowl and choose one at a time, reading its text aloud, as you would with numbers in bingo. Instruct the youth that if they have a box on their grid with the words you read from a chip, they may cover that box with a marker. A full row, column, or diagonal line filled with four marked boxes wins.
Play until you have a winner. Play as many times as you can within your time frame. Process the activity:

  • Did you learn anything about your loyalties? Did anything surprise you about the loyalties of others? [Remember to hold to your group covenant. This is not an opportunity to comment on another participant's choices.]
  • How might what you have learned here affect your loyalties? Might you stop being loyal to something or someone because your friends or family are not loyal to them? Would this necessarily be a bad outcome?
  • What if friends/family relate to you a negative encounter with something/someone you are loyal to? Several negative encounters? What if you have negative encounters with an object of your loyalty? What would cause you to lose the loyalty you feel for something or someone? What would make you question it? Share real life examples.