Wellness, Wellbeing and the World
Spring 2020
Tenth Grade
I conceived of this project just as I was about to begin in a new role as the lead teacher of a 10th grade Humanities class mid year. This also happened to be occurring in the midst of school closures that resulted from the global COVID-19 pandemic. While preparing to dive in during this time of transition and deep uncertainty, it felt critically important to have students engage in a project that was responsive to their mental and emotional needs, and simultaneously felt authentic in regards to the social issues that were suddenly in the spotlight as a result of the Coronavirus. This project was designed to provide my students with the space and tools to reflect upon the ways that this unique moment in history was affecting them. Furthermore, this project pushed them to identify tools and try practices that promote wellbeing. Through our study of how identity impact wellness, students examined the social inequities that have been magnified by the Coronavirus and why these inequities exist. This project took place entirely in a distance learning environment.
Content and Skill Goals
"Students will..."
1) Discuss the locations of the colonial rule of such nations as England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and the United States.
2) Explain imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers and the colonized and the varied immediate and long-term responses by the people under colonial rule.
3) Understand what public policy is and how policies can be developed to promote change.
4) Be able to integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question.
5) Be able to plan and deliver an informative/explanatory presentation that conveys information from primary and secondary sources coherently, uses domain specific vocabulary, and provides a conclusion that summarizes the main points.
Week 4: How does race impact a person's health and wellness?During this week in our project, students read an article about life in a predominantly black Baltimore neighborhood. They also watched a short documentary called "Lakota in America," about life on a reservation for members of the Lakota tribe in South Dakota. Students then engaged in a socratic seminar to discuss two questions:
1) How can we explain the health and wellness disparities between most white Americans and the people of Baltimore/ the Lakota? 2) What connection is there between racism and disproportionately high rates of chronic diseases, diabetes, infant mortality, suicide, etc experienced by people of color? |
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Week 5: European Colonialism and RaceThis week, students explored the historical topic of European colonialism. After listening to the podcast "Scene on Radio: The Invention of Race" we discussed the connection between racism and colonialism and explored the lasting impacts that both have had on the world.
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Week 6: How do gender and sexuality impact a person's health and wellness?This week, students used the reciprocal teaching method to read articles related to health disparities on the basis of gender and sexuality both within the United States and abroad. They learned how both biases and laws can impact a person's mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. In this video, students share what struck them in each of the articles that they read.
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Student Voice and Choice
This project was specifically designed to allow for student voice and choice in each phase. In the first phase, students were asked to assess their own wellness across a series of eight wellness dimensions and identify areas where they felt the strongest as well as areas where there was room for growth and improvement. Each student then set a personal wellness goal that they would commit to achieving through a daily practice. Through ongoing reflection, students then tracked their progress in order to see how they were able to affect their own health and wellbeing through choices and purposeful action. This allowed students to pursue interests, passions and strive for personal growth in a way that was meaningful to each of them individually. Similarly, in the second phase of this project, students were asked to think about wellness inequities and examine what policies and practices lead to these disparate health outcomes. Students were able to select a country and a topic that they were interested in researching further before creating a policy proposal to address health inequities within that country. Below, you can see examples of student work from this phase of the project.
Student Work Samples
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This student chose to focus on health disparities experienced by women in Peru. She expressed to me that her choice was based on her identity as LatinX and her interest in Feminism.
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This student discussed health disparities experienced by Canada's indigenous population. After finalizing his project, he related that he was surprised to find that Canada's indigenous people experienced similar issues as Native people in the United States.
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Through this presentation, this student demonstrated a deep understanding of how public policy can have both positive and negative impacts on communities. She outlined a three-part policy change and described in detail how each program would improve the health of LGBTQ people in Russia.
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