Mental Health Metaphors - Mindfulness for Teens

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THIS VIDEO
A "fly on the wall" look into our classroom. Full 7th Grade mental health lesson included!

MINDFULNESS: a mental state of paying attention to the present moment in an accepting, nonjudgmental manner. Being mindful is being conscious of thoughts, feelings, and behavior in relation to our interactions with both ourselves and with others.

Notice the NOISE in this lesson! The classroom energy throughout the activity is all part of the lesson. Yes, it can be annoying. ;) But it's a part of the learning experience and draws attention to mindful living.

Students were presented with multiple tasks with a quarter dollar coin-- watch and listen in as the class battles focus issues to achieve great connections to real life.

The coin challenges stirred the classroom with just a bit of movement to boost brain activity. The quarter is simply used to encourage analogies, and this metaphorical look at mental health is meant to nurture higher level thinking.

You'll hear the group socialize throughout much of the activities. The reactions and chatter are all on-task; students are engaged and learning-- the quick side conversations are allowed because you'll hear they all involve thoughts about the class activity. That's how teenagers learn. This helps create social connectedness, which is a huge piece in a person's developing mental health.

There isn't necessarily a "right" or "wrong" when it comes to the responses to the reflection prompts-- there are many metaphors we may have missed here that viewers can come up with on their own. That's the point! For instance, the last "magic trick" could easily be linked to hiding true feelings when it comes to interacting with others. We may try as hard as we can to push through hard times (like slamming the coin through the table), but negative emotions keep coming back. Is it really about eliminating human emotions? Mindfulness practice encourages us to allow those feelings to set in without self-judgement, then appropriately respond when the time is right. See how many more analogies can be made, all "correct" and all worthy of attention.

What else could work well as a coin challenge and/or question prompts for debriefing afterwards? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. :)

Full lesson write-up here: http://tinyurl.com/HealthEd-CoinChall...

Be sure to check out more mindfulness activities here: http://LifeIsTheFuture.com/Teaching-M...