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The right path.
Growth Mindset (Grades 6-12)
Overview: Life can be busy and can create distress in the lives of families and students. Therefore, it is important to highlight the need to have a growth mindset and to manage stress to respect yourself, your health, and your well-being.
Duration: 2 days (45 minutes each day)
Character Education Objectives:
Students will:
- share ideas about good stress and distress on the body
- discuss ways to use a growth mindset to navigate stressful situations
- create a Personal Stress Management Plan
Materials:
Lesson Plan Day 1
Journal: (5 mins)
- What makes you feel stressed?
- How do you know you are stressed?
Whole Group Discussion (10 mins)
- What are physical signs of stress?
- What are some emotional signs you may be feeling distressed?
- How do we show respect for ourselves by paying attention to our stress levels?
Whole Group Video 15 mins:
- Watch Video : How To Make Stress Your Friend
- Record what you learned on the 3-2-1 Handout
Whole Group Discussion (10 mins)
- What are the effects of believing stress is bad?
- How does changing the way you think about stress impact your body’s response to stress?
Exit Ticket: (5 mins)
- What is the number one thing learned about stress today?
Lesson Plan Day Two
Journal: (5 mins)
- What should you think when you feel stressed?
Small group Discussion/Productive Group Work (25 mins)
- Use the 3-2-1 Handouts from the previous lesson to help with responses
- Record the responses to share with the whole group on Stress Quadrant Handout
- What:
- should you think when you feel stressed?
- are some healthy ways to process stress?
- are some unhealthy responses to stress?
- is important to know about stress?
- What:
Individual (15 mins)
- Utilize the posters created in a small group to give ideas
- Complete your own Stress Management Plan
- This is the exit ticket
References
Lee Health, 2020. The Good And Bad Stress. [online] YouTube. Available at: <https://youtu.be/ZN2NarsQZ04> [Accessed 26 March 2020].
McGonigal, K., 2020. How To Make Stress Your Friend. [online] Ted.com. Available at: <https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare> [Accessed 26 March 2020].
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Control and choice
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Emotional Toughness (Grades 6-12)
Overview: Students today need more opportunities to build their emotional toughness in a world that is as fast paced and ever changing. Thus, creating conditions that allow them to take responsibility for their behavior, emotions, and responses is important in building resilience for learning and development. This lesson will have students focus on their emotional toughness and highlight the need to be responsible for our responses in emotional situations.
Character Education Objectives:
Students will:
- utilize the Scale of Emotion to describe how they feel
- discuss Emotional Toughness Indicators
- reflect on their own emotional resilience and the importance of taking responsibility for their own emotional response.
Materials
Lesson Plan
Journal (5 mins)
- Using the Scale of Emotion explain where you feel you are today and why.
Small Group or Whole Group Discussion (30 mins)
- Read through the Emotional Toughness Indicators
- As a group discuss/respond to the following:
- Emotional Flexibility
- Define productive and unproductive states of emotion
- What emotions make you unproductive?
- Why are emotions so important?
- Who is responsible for your emotions?
- Emotional Responsiveness
- What are some positive responses students when you face unpleasant or unproductive emotions?
- Give an example of a time you took responsibility for creating a positive emotional response
- How did this impact you and those around you?
- Emotional Resiliency
- Look up the definition of resilience and come up with a working definition with your group
- What is a situation you have had to show resiliency in your own life?
- How has this situation made you more responsible and resilient?
- Emotional Strength
- How do people develop a never-quit attitude?
- Emotional Flexibility
References
Hurst, K., 2020. Learn How To Move UP The (Vibrational) Emotional Scale. [online] The Law Of Attraction. Available at: <https://www.thelawofattraction.com/law-attraction-learning-move-emotional-scale/> [Accessed 24 March 2020].
I Am Responsible for My Emotions (Grades K-5)
Overview: You may often hear students place blame on others for their own emotions. It is difficult for students to understand that not only do they control their own emotions, but they are responsible for their emotions. One of the best ways to be responsible for your emotions is to be aware of how you are feeling and take preventative measures. This lesson is designed for students to think about how they are feeling, and how they move towards more regulated emotions.
Character Education Objectives:
Students will:
- describe their behaviors and emotions during calm, increasing stress.
- create a plan of how to safely and effectively regulate during each period.
Materials
Lesson: (large group)
- Share with students about how responsibility includes being responsible for our own emotions. Although it doesn’t always feel like, we do have a choice in how we respond and we have the responsibility to regulate our emotions to keep ourselves and others safe.
- Show students the stoplight handout. Talk about each light. Green light is your calm state. Describe what you look like, what you sound like, what you do and how you feel when you are personally calm. Yellow light is when you are escalating. Again, share your personal feelings and behaviors when you are escalating. Red is distress. Share with students how you feel and behave when you are in distress. It is important to be candid and show students that adults get to the red light occasionally, too.
- Ask students to individually reflect on their own emotions. Encourage them to write or draw in each light how they feel and how they speak or act while in that light. It may be helpful to go light by light with students, depending on their level of comprehension.
- Once students have completed their own stoplight, explain that life isn’t always being in the green light and it is ok to be yellow or red, but part of our responsibility of our emotions is to regulate and try to bring ourselves back down to green. Also, share that often when we are in the red it is too late. Catching ourselves in yellow means we need to know what yellow looks and sounds like for us. Then, we have to use the tools we have to bring ourselves back down to green.
- Have students brainstorm ways they can bring themselves back down to green. Share personal examples and encourage students to think about the resources they have available to them in the classroom or the school.
Journal
Have students write down a few ways they can deescalate when they are in the yellow or green. Ask them to think about the resources they have available at school and home, as these techniques may look different in different settings.
Good Stress Versus Distress (Grades 6-12)
Not all stress is bad. Most, if not all of us recognize this simple fact, and yet when was the last time you heard anyone say, “I’m stressed” with a smile on their face or joy in their heart?
The reality is, stress exists on a continuum, from good stress to distress. Good stress is the stress that challenges you, motivates you, perhaps even helps you focus. Teachers put their students through good stress every day by asking them to take an more challenging math problems, tackle difficult texts, and attempt new skills. Good stress helps us grow and develop as human beings.
However, there comes a point on the continuum when good stress becomes distress, when stress stops being motivating and instead becomes overwhelming. It’s important for each of us to be aware of our stress at any given moment so that we know if we are being challenged (good stress) or overcome (distress).
It’s also important for us to be aware of stress of others so that we can continue to support and challenge them as needed. But, recognizing if other’s are in a state of good stress or distress can be challenging. Not everyone wears their stress publicly. To help others think about their stress, and gain an awareness of their stress, draw the Good Stress-Distress continuum (see below) on whiteboard or sheet of paper. Ask your students, athletes, kids, or colleagues to put an X on the curve indicating their current stress level. They don’t need to explain why they are feeling that good stress or distress – this activity is simply about awareness. However, as a team leader, educator, coach, or parent, you can use your knowledge of others stress to push them further (good stress) or provide support if they are in distress.
Download a PDF of the continuum.
This activity is one of several extension activities in the Growth Mindset module of The ESSENTIALS, a new resource for middle and high school students. The ESSENTIALS modules draw upon nearly 25 years of applied research and development in various K-16 education settings, the workplace, and diverse athletic environments. Each module is a blueprint of research-based best practices for developing an essential character and culture skill needed for success in school, work, and beyond. Click here to order The ESSENTIALS for your students.