Planning for Your & Your Students’ Care This Election Season

This week and the post-election period will likely be an emotionally charged time for you and your students. It is crucial to collectively name and acknowledge this. We offer the following activities to support you and your school community in intentionally reflecting on how you will take care of yourselves and each other during this time and beyond.

This week and the post-election period will likely be an emotionally charged time for you and your students. It is crucial to collectively name and acknowledge this. We offer the following activities to support you and your school community in intentionally reflecting on how you will take care of yourselves and each other during this time and beyond.
 


Circle-Based Prompts

Dr. Ruth King offers a framework for reflecting on, identifying, and creating the kind of resources you, and your students, may need in the coming weeks. Inspired by her framework, we’ve devised a menu of prompts to help you and your school community identify who, or what, will “anchor” you during times when strong feelings may be activated. We’ve tried to keep the prompts as simple and open as possible for use with various grades and age groups, but we invite you to modify as needed.

  • Who in your life brings you feelings of calm or peace? What is it about this person (or people)?
     
  • What objects, music, books, places, etc., bring you happiness or peace?
     
  • When do you feel most calm and happy throughout the day?
     
  • How does your breath feel inside your body right now? Give kind attention to your exhale and relax before your inhale.

 

Wheel of Holistic Health Activity (Middle School/High School Students)

Using the wheel of holistic health, we invite you and your students to determine ways to balance the four parts: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. By identifying the areas in which you thrive and those in which you struggle, you may better ensure how you can support yourselves and each other in finding and maintaining balance.

Activity Directions:

Distribute the “Wheel of Holistic Health” handout for students to review.

Wheel of Holistic Health

Then set the tone for today’s session through a mini-lecture and discussion. First, explain that this is the wheel of holistic health, or the medicine wheel. Draw on student’s prior knowledge by asking if they know what the word “holistic” means. Elicit, or explain, that it means “balanced; whole; integrated; interconnected; complete.” 

Then explain that this wheel dates back to the stone circles found in North America from the earliest of times and its concept and teachings continue to be relevant and meaningful today. 

Remind students that the circle, or wheel, is a powerful symbol that accounts for, and acknowledges, every aspect of existence in its four quadrants. Invite students to consider other circle symbols that hold power, or are meaningful to them, in their own lives—including the circle shape and process used in these sessions! They can share these popcorn-style.

Transition to the activity by explaining that the wheel of holistic health focuses on the four parts of a person’s well-being: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. It helps to imagine that this wheel is inside of us. 

Then create four groups, one for each element. Have students gather and discuss 1) what they think their element means and 2) a few examples of self-care practices that would be aligned with that area. 

After four minutes or so, reconvene the whole group. Then chart what students share as the meaning and examples of each quadrant of the wheel. Your chart may look something like the following:
 

Physical – Relating to the body

  • Examples: exercise, drinking water, eating healthy, getting enough sleep

Mental – Relating to the mind or brain

  • Examples: meditation, reading, conversations with someone who understands and respects you (a friend, a relative, etc.), learning more about a topic that interests us

Emotional – Relating to our feelings, the state of our mind and our body

  • Examples: Mindfulness/contemplation practices, identifying and sharing our feelings with those we trust, journaling, seeking counseling/therapy

Spiritual – Relating to our sense of purpose or how we make meaning in our lives

  • Examples: Being out in nature/green spaces, singing or dancing, performing acts of service, attending religious services
     

Then offer these key points about the holistic wheel of health. You may want to chart these or display them on an interactive whiteboard for students to read as you relay them. As you convey these key points, be sure to draw on students’ prior knowledge throughout by asking them to define key words or share connections they make to what you are sharing.

  • Traditional knowledge teaches that good health requires a balance of all four parts of selves. One is no more important than the other and rather than being compartmentalized, they all work together to keep us whole and healthy. 
     
  • The symbol of the Medicine Wheel demonstrates this holistic health model: it is circular, each element is equal and interconnected, and factors influence one another. Without one of the four parts, we are incomplete. 
     
  • An imbalance in any area may negatively affect our overall well-being. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to all aspects of our health like the elements shown here, not just the physical health of our bodies.

     

In partnerships, small groups, or a go-round, invite students to engage in some storytelling using the following prompt:

  • Think of a time when there was an imbalance within the four parts of your well-being as shown in the Wheel of Holistic Health (physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual). How did you know there was an imbalance?  What did this look like, sound like or feel like in your daily life? 
     

Give students a minute or so to reflect and process. They may journal if they wish. Then, using the storytelling method you’ve selected, have students share their stories with one another. As educator, be sure to authentically share a time when you experienced an imbalance within the four parts of your well-being and how this affected you.

If sharing happens within pairs or small groups, be sure to give students at least 5 minutes each to relate their stories. 

Thank students for sharing.

Note: If the storytelling is deep and powerful, allow it to take up as much time as is beneficial to your community. Continue with the rest of the session at another time. 

Refer to the four signs posted in each corner of the room, one for each quadrant of the Wheel of Holistic Health (“Physical”, “Mental,” “Emotional,” and “Spiritual”).

Explain to students that, in this activity, you will read a prompt and then ask them to choose the quadrant that best matches that prompt by moving to that corresponding corner of the room.  
 

Now read the prompt aloud:

  • In which quadrant of the holistic wheel of health do you think you are the strongest?
     

Give students some think time. Let them know that when they are ready, they should move to the quadrant in which they feel they are strongest. Once all groups have gathered, invite them to discuss the following questions with each other. Be sure to move to a group as well and join in the discussion. Give each group at least five minutes to discuss:

  • Why did you select this as your strongest quadrant?
  • What do you do to strengthen this quadrant of the wheel of holistic health?  
     

Reconvene the whole group and then invite each small group to share out the highlights of their discussion, including any themes or patterns they noticed; connections they made; or a-ha moments they had. Then read aloud the next prompt, inviting students to move again to the quadrant that best matches their thinking:

  • Which of the four quadrants do you think you could tend to more, or which one feels the weakest or most challenging for you?
     

Again, give students some think time. Let them know that when they are ready, they should move to the quadrant they feel they could tend to more. Once all groups have gathered, invite them to discuss the following questions with each other. Be sure to move to a group as well and join in the discussion Give each group at least five minutes to discuss:

  • What do you think keeps you from strengthening this quadrant of the wheel of holistic health? 
  • Are there similar struggles within the group? If so, what do you think you could to support and encourage each other in strengthening this quadrant?
     

Reconvene the whole group and then invite each small group to share out the highlights of their discussion, including any themes or patterns they noticed; connections they made; or ideas they had for how they could support one another with strengthening this quadrant. 

Thank students for digging deeper into the holistic wheel of health.

In a go-round, invite students to share one thing they will do to better balance their wheel of holistic health. Ensure that the next time you meet, you check in with students about how it went with their wheel balancing activity.