From time to time, I want to talk about them in this blog as well. Now is one of those times.
The YWPH is considered a "total wellness" group. What this means is that we focus on developing healthy bodies and minds. We meet twice a week, and we exercise for about thirty minutes, and then we have discussions. Last semester, our focus was concentrated on the Penn Resiliency Program. This program was originally developed to prevent the development of symptoms of depression in adolescents. However, I used it with my girls because it has activities that help develop problem solving skills, assertiveness, and that give students a vocabulary useful for talking and thinking about emotions and how they affect our actions. We had some great conversations, but I felt that my girls were a bit too cognitively mature for the curriculum.
So this semester, we are doing something completely different. We are exploring the meaning of life. My hope is that by exploring the general question, "What gives peoples' lives meaning?" the girls will gain some insight into what makes their own lives meaningful.
I did not design a curriculum for these discussions right off the bat, because I decided it would be more meaningful if the girls came up with their own ideas of how "the meaning of life" should be explored. At the beginning of our first meeting Saturday, I wrote the question "What gives peoples' lives meaning?" on the board and asked the girls to take a good 15 minutes to really think about the many different areas of life where meaning can be found. After adding their ideas to the board, I asked them to do their best to organize the ideas they came up with into more finite groups. Here's what they came up with...
Loving Relationships: Family, Friends, Romance
Beliefs: Religion, Faith, Morals and Values
Ambition: Power, Money, Respect, Employment
Passion: The Arts, Learning/School, Creativity, Service Work
Taking a Break: Travel, Chill Time, Food, Hobbies
I was very impressed that they were able to construct such a meaningful curriculum for the semester. It made my life easier to be sure :) They are an amazing group of young women and I love them all dearly. I am so excited to hear what they have to say about how we find meaning in life!
Impressive, as usual. I like an earlier post in which you make the realization that you wish to be a student of teaching. That's the secret, my friend, to remaining enthusiastic about your profession for years and not becoming stale. Don't change just for the sake of change--even if that has some benefit--but change because you want to improve what you're doing, change to meet the needs of your new classes of students, change because you have learned something new, change because you want to learn something new :) In whatever you do, as long as you do it to help your students learn and grow, no matter what you do will be good. I've told student teachers for years: "Your students have been learning for years despite their teachers, and you aren't going to hurt them (as long as you are trying to help them)." I think they will all be lucky to be in your classes.
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