Suggested script
The scripts for each lesson are designed to guide you (the teacher or presenter) through the material; they do not need to be read verbatim. We encourage you to adapt the script by using examples that are most relevant to your students. Links to an abbreviated version of this content, all videos, webpages, worksheets, and other materials mentioned in this lesson are available online.
Introduction (4–5 minutes)
Main lesson
We face obstacles, both small and big, all the time. Being in school with our friends and teachers can be a great support system where we can get help to overcome our challenges. Let’s spend a little time talking about the barriers you have come up against in the past.
We’ve all experienced challenging times, but each person’s experiences are unique. While some students may have experienced moving or changing schools, social or family stressors, academic pressure, or trauma and loss, how we react to these challenges varies. Some of you may feel like you were able to adapt well and even grow from difficult experiences, and you may be looking forward to new challenges. Others might be nervous thinking about what changes are coming your way or how you can be expected to handle anything new or different.
When people overcome difficult times or situations, they are demonstrating something called resilience. Resilience is the ability to move forward from challenges and hard times. Even better, there are skills we can learn and practice to build our resilience. And, you don’t have to do this alone; you can reach out to people you trust. There are “helpers” out there.
[NOTE: Consider including a relevant example of something that has occurred in your school, city, state, or beyond, where someone or groups of people have demonstrated resilience—the ability to move forward from challenges and hard times. One example might be a student who had some type of physical setback (injury, economic, etc.), yet they were able to overcome it and are doing very well today. It might be a community that had a disaster and how people rallied together and are now stronger because of it. Another example could be using events across the globe, such as war or a natural disaster; teachers can highlight someone whose story is reflective of the skills found in being resilient.]
No matter how the past has impacted you, time continues moving forward. You are older and more experienced, so let’s pause for a short while to reflect and talk about what has happened to help you grow and what helps you thrive. In other words, how have you built your resilience as you move forward with life?
Think about a plant or flowers growing in a pot in your house. They are pretty hardy, able to go days without water or sunlight. However, when they miss those things for very long, they begin to wilt and dry up. But when you water them and allow them to get sunlight, they bounce back and continue growing.
We are like that as well. There are tough times when we feel like we aren’t being watered or taken care of (like being asked to take on significant responsibilities we aren’t sure we can handle) or that we are in the dark (such as when someone we love dies or we lose things we cherish). But once we learn to acknowledge our challenges, we can begin to bounce forward and even learn to thrive. We call that ability to move through challenging times resilience.
For many years psychologists have been studying concepts like stress and resilience. They have learned that even though some people are more easily able to move forward from struggles and hard times than others, everyone can build resilience to help them weather tough times. There are specific skills that we can build and use to help us cope more effectively with stressors and move forward when we are struggling, or when unexpected things are put in our paths. [Teachers/presenters—see the reference page in the full module (PDF, 927KB)opens in new window for more resources.]
Activity (10+ minutes)
We’re going to start by talking about how values influence our behaviors, actions, and minds. Our behaviors and actions are based in part on the things in our lives that we value and think are important to us. Values help us to make choices in our lives. Often, we do not stop and think much about what we value. Instead, we act on feelings and instincts. This exercise was created to help you take a few minutes to think about what you value and then which of your values is most important, and then of second-most importance, and so on.
[Note to presenters: In these lessons, the term “values” is defined as those characteristics (e.g., honesty, integrity), activities (e.g., sports, school, clubs, art, music), or people (e.g., family, friends) that are important to individual students or individuals. The next four lessons will focus on how stress impacts the body, actions, and mind (BAM) and the skills that can build resilience. Specifically, students will practice a calming breathing exercise; identify positive, helpful actions to take in response to stress; and learn strategies to challenge unhelpful thoughts. We will discuss ways to better manage our stress and at the same time, build our ability to bounce back from difficulties.]
Instructions:
- Pass out the “What Do You Value?” worksheet to each student.
- Then, based on the amount of time you would like to allow for this exercise, ask them to write at least three values. (The worksheet has a total of 16 categories, but for the sake of time, a minimum of three is needed.)
- Once they have completed the identified number, ask them to complete the next page with “My Pie Chart,” writing in their values and determining how large a slice of the pie would be for each value listed.
- To summarize this portion of the activity, if the instructor completed their own values pie chart, they may want to share it as an example to the class or ask one or two students to share theirs. Discuss how students might make different choices based on the weight (size of the pie slice) of each value.
- For example, if the largest slice of the pie is “Creating social media content” and the second is “Spending time with friends” then discuss how the choice to stay home to practice and record a new dance video would take precedence over talking to a best friend.
- Students can also use their values to focus on positive things in their lives when they face challenges or stressors in life so identifying their values can help students promote resilience.
- Divide the students into small discussion groups. Remind students that these worksheets/lessons are confidential and will not be collected and that they can choose what information—if any—they want to share.
- As a group, they will be asked to discuss values they think are important.
- At the end of 6 minutes, ask each group to suggest a few that they discussed and have a volunteer note these on the board.
- As a class, rate the values that were more often discussed. Emphasize that each student has different values, some in common with others, and others not.
- Teachers can also use a polling app or EdTech website to go through the values one at a time and have students anonymously indicate if they circled ‘YES’ for each value. Note how many responded positively to each question, perhaps by writing the tally on the board. The discussion will then focus on the number of students impacted across the various areas, perhaps noting which item had the most positive responses and why they think that might be the case.
Once this activity has been completed, ask students to consider how their values can help them make good decisions for themselves and how these values might also drive their actions and help them cope with stressors and challenges in life.
- For example, let's say you are really down about not doing well on an assignment. One of your values is friendships. You might therefore reach out to a friend to talk about how you are feeling. Talking out loud about it can often help with perspective about the situation to cope better. Perhaps you and your friend can brainstorm something you can do about it (e.g., talk with the teacher to help explain what you might not have understood or their suggestions of what you can do next time). Perhaps another value is playing music. Not only do you enjoy it, but it helps you relax. You might put on music at home to help cope with the stress of the assignment. As time allows, call on students to share.
Closing (2–3 minutes)
Summary: Moving forward
We have discussed how your values can guide you and enable you to make decisions that are most helpful to you. What do you want your future to look like? That’s what we want to help you envision and create.
This is the first of five lessons. The next three lessons will give you some psychological research-based strategies to build your strengths so that you will be better equipped to cope with future challenges and craft your vision for your future, becoming more resilient. The final lesson will give you time to pull all the strategies and tools together for you to reflect on how you can use what you learned to help you manage stressful situations in the future.
What will you learn? Sometimes we fear our feelings or judge ourselves for having them because we fear they will overwhelm us. But if we know we have the skills and resilience we need to cope with difficult emotions, we don’t have to fear them. We have three keys we are going to give to help you cope when your stress is high. We will learn how values impact our bodies, actions, and minds, represented by this formula: Values → BAM.
See the full module document (PDF, 927KB)opens in new window, for a resource list for students who may need additional or outside help.
