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Grades 4–5 · Out and About · Badge 5

The dial, at ten

Use the Feeling Dial to read a situation rather than a face, and act on Not Sure without needing to be right.

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Step 1 of 10

1Look

A perfectly nice face

Still image

Two pictures, same face

The same smiling adult drawn twice. In the first he is behind a bakery counter handing over a paper bag. In the second he is at a park gate, alone, holding out the same bag towards a kid on her own.

Same person. Same smile. Your dial should read differently, and it is not because of anything on his face.

2The idea

Faces are not information. Situations are.

You cannot tell anything from a face, and neither can adults, whatever they say. What you can read is the situation: where you are, who else is here, and what is being asked. The Feeling Dial is reading the situation. Let it.

The dial has five settings. Fine. Funny. Twitchy. Scared. Angry. At ten, the one you will use most is Twitchy, and it is the useful one. Twitchy means something is a bit off and you do not know what. You do not have to know what.

3The idea

What moves the dial, and what to do at each setting

These move it on their own, whoever the person is:
You are on your own and nobody else can see you.
An adult is asking a kid for help.
They want you to come somewhere.
They want you to keep it between the two of you.
Smiling does not move it back. Knowing your name does not either. It is on your bag.

Fine: carry on. Twitchy: check. Checking means the Two Questions. Do I have permission? Would I be happy telling Mum about this after? If either answer is no, you say no, keep walking, and tell tonight. Scared: leave now, be loud if you need to, tell tonight.

4The idea

The lost dog, worked through

A man at the park gate asks if you have seen a small brown dog. You are on your own. Now read the situation, not his face. Alone: yes. Adult asking a kid for help: yes. Two things have moved the dial, so it is on Twitchy, and it is right.

You say, “No, sorry,” and keep walking. You tell your mum about it tonight. He might really have lost a dog. None of what you did hurt him. And if he had not, you were already thirty metres away, on the way to people. That is what being wrong costs: nothing.

5Decide

A man at the park asks if you have seen a small brown dog. You are on your own. Where is the dial?

Right, and notice why. It is not that he is lying. He might really have lost a dog. It is that you are alone, an adult is asking a kid for help, and grown-ups ask grown-ups. Twitchy means: I say I haven’t seen it, I keep walking, I tell somebody tonight. If he did lose the dog, none of that hurt him.

Read the situation, not the story. Fine is an answer about him, and you cannot know that. Scared is more than the situation needs, and it makes you move badly. Twitchy is the honest reading: something is a bit off, so I check, and checking here means keep walking and tell tonight.

Pick one to carry on.

6The idea

Being wrong costs nothing

You will sometimes read Twitchy about somebody who was completely fine. You will step back from a neighbour, or keep walking past a genuinely lost dog. The cost of that is a slightly awkward thirty seconds. Nobody is harmed by a kid checking.

The other kind of wrong, reading Fine when it was not, is the one that costs. So when you are not sure, you are sure enough to check. Not sure is not a problem to solve. It is an answer.

7Find them

Which of these move the dial on their own, whoever the person is?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

8Your turn

Harder cases

Interactive

Set the dial

Six situations, each a bit less obvious than the last: a neighbour, a shop worker, a teenager, a lost adult, a lift from a friend's parent, a man who says he is a police officer but is not in uniform. For each, set the dial and pick the move. In four of the six, the right dial is Twitchy and the right move is check.

Twitchy is not an accusation. It is a setting. Most of the time you check, it turns out fine, and you lost nothing.

9Say it

The sentence for Not Sure

Say this out loud, in your normal voice

“Not sure, so I check”

It is a private sentence. You say it in your head on a pavement, and it turns a feeling into a move.

10Do it

Before you leave this page

This week, notice one moment when your dial moved off Fine while you were out. It does not have to be a big one. Tell a parent what the situation was, where the dial went, and what you did. That is the whole drill.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Read the situation, not the face. Not sure means check. Being wrong costs nothing.

Next lesson: Grown-ups ask grown-ups

Badge 5 · People, Out There

5.1The dial, at ten 5.2Grown-ups ask grown-ups 5.3Saying no out loud ★Badge Challenge

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