Session 2: Feelings 101 / self-concept / human dignity

Session 2: Feelings 101 / self-concept / human dignity

As this your first session meeting with your students as a small group, today is about building rapport (with ice breaker activity, check-in), introducing your students to feelings 101, and establishing self-concept/dignity as foundation for mental health (you can simply prompt this by saying that our understanding of who we are is the basis of our mental health -- for instance, overly harsh judgment of ourselves or others, egotism, self-isolation,  perfectionism, all come from false understandings of ourselves and others, and this is often the source of challenging emotions).

 

In exploring self-concept/dignity with them, start off just as we did with session 1 by asking what comes up when they think of the word self-concept. What comes up will likely be related to identity formed through relationship (through family, role in society, qualities relative to other people..tall/short). Help them connect the dots for them by emphasizing how relationship is a key part of how we view ourselves. Establish how the bottomline is that we are human.

What does it mean to be human? We are body and soul. We have intellect and will, we have the ability to reason and we have the power to make choices. Being human also means we have shortcomings, failings and weaknesses, but there is hope for us to grow and improve. Furthermore, being human means we have inherent dignity and worth no matter our circumstances or what we have done or failed to do. This dignity and worth does not go away and cannot be taken away by other people. Our dignity and worth comes from being made in the image of God. We are all equal in dignity and worth. We are made from love and for love. We are made for relationship with each other and with God. We all have purpose. We have a personal responsibility to grow and improve, and fulfill our purpose.

Connecting today's lesson with REACT:

Respect your dignity/worth and that of other people.

Empathy is essential for relationship.

Accept that we are human and make mistakes.

Courage helps us make good choices.

Trust that there is hope for growing and improving.

 

 

Objective

1.  Introduce students to feelings 101 (feelings 101 en español) and emotional awareness as preface to talking about self-concept. Emphasize how self-awareness is a scientific process of knowing thyself through observation, reasoning, and discovery. 

2. Establish how understanding our self-concept is a major component of our experience of emotions and mental health. How our self-concept is formed is a major influence on how we process our emotions. Also, reflexively oftentimes how we respond to emotions such as stress can have a major impact on our self-concept for better or worse. 

3.  Engage students in discussion of where self-concept comes from. Integrate values of human dignity with self-concept with special attention to createdness.

4.  Introduce REACT principles as thought exercise for reminding students of self-concept in response to challenges.

5.  Engage students in discussion about their perspectives and experiences with self-concept, stress, mindset, and their understandings of what is human dignity.

6.  Reflect on their experience of sharing and discussion. Establishing that relating to each other is major factor in how self-concept is developed.

Approach

1.  check-in/check-out

2.  Initiating students to the experience of group discussion.

Possible Discussion Questions

What do you think of your classes so far this year?

Is 8th grade feel more stressful than 7th grade?

Raise your hand if you have ever felt stressed about school or sports.

Raise your hand if you have ever felt discouraged by a poor grade.

Raise your hand if you really want to do well in school or in sports.

When you think back on a challenging situation, what feelings do you think of?

When you have these feelings, what type of thoughts come up? Do you have discouraging thoughts about yourself?

What you think of when you think of the word self-concept?

Where does your self-concept come from?

When have you felt that you have more value to people? When you are successful? But when you are not successful, does that mean you have less value? Do you value people less if you judge them as not very successful?

Why do you feel unworthy of self-respect sometimes?

Do you jump to negative judgments about other people? Or yourself? How do you feel when you have these judgments? Do you think there is more to it than you think?

Is it really possible to have less human dignity? Where does our human dignity come from?

How does your awareness of human dignity impact how you form your self-concept? Or, how you view others?

Activities (optional)

1.  Ice breakers:  "Get to know me" worksheets

2.  "Roll the dice, break the ice" questions

Supplies Needed

1.  Jolly Rancher candies

2.  worksheets: "Get to know me" , "Roll the dice" (optional)

3.  Dice (optional)

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