Hardball Movie Lesson Plan

Hardball Movie Lesson Plan helps teachers show their students the importance of setting kids up for success by having caring adults in their lives and how much a game like baseball can teach us about life.

After completing Hardball Movie Lesson Plan, students will increase their understanding of growing character skills, overcoming obstacles, and focusing on fulfillment.

Check out our list of 75 Engaging Leadership Movies for Students in High School to inspire your students.

Hardball Leadership Lessons

Conor O’Neill had a problem. His gambling addiction made him desperate to do anything to pay off his debts. Even coach a ragtag baseball team of kids from the Cabrini Green housing projects in Chicago. As hard as he tried, Conor could not do two things…stop his gambling habits and keep from making a connection with the kids he coached.

Conor discovered that there is much more to a sport than providing entertainment and an avenue to make money. And winning a championship is about more than scoring more runs than your opponent on the scoreboard.

Hardball Movie Lesson Plan teaches us that when we go beyond the surface, there is more to life than dollar signs and proving who is superior based on the outcome of a game. Giving it our best shot can give us something more important than any trophy can.

In order to complete these activities, students will need to watch the movie Hardball, which has a rating of PG-13 (some violence, language, thematic elements) and has a run time of 1 hour and 46 minutes.

5 Classroom Activities to Learn Leadership at the Movies

Each of our Leadership at the Movies lesson plans includes the following activities:

✅ Reflection: allows students to journal about one of the movie’s themes prior to watching.

✅ Analysis: questions and prompts to analyze the characters, plot, and climax of the movie.

✅ Practice & Discussion: a partner/group activity that takes the principles of the movie and asks students to take action and grow in their own lives.

✅ Extension: a RAFT (Role-Audience-Format-Topic) writing prompt to help students apply their new knowledge.

✅ Lead for Impact: challenges students to pinpoint how the hero of the story exhibited The 12 Fundamentals of Impact and then synthesize how they can apply the lessons to writing their own story.

Help Students Meet Social Emotional Learning Competencies

WARNING: This is a DEEP LEARNING lesson plan to help students employ a LEADERSHIP approach to SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL LEARNING.

These activities are designed to help students meet the following Social & Emotional Learning Competencies as outlined by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL):

⭐ Develop SELF-AWARENESS and SELF-MANAGEMENT skills to achieve school and life success.

⭐ Use SOCIAL-AWARENESS and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS.

⭐ Demonstrate DECISION-MAKING skills and responsible behaviors in personal, school, and community contexts.

Student Leadership Skills

The activities in Hardball Movie Lesson Plan will challenge students to move closer to mastery in the following skills: leadership, cooperation with others, creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, problem solving, and judgment and decision making.