Landing and Launching:101 Checkins and Checkouts: Installment 15

34 Masks

Preparation time: Ten minutes

Materials: Construction paper, crayons or permanent markers, glue sticks, art supplies. To add variety you can gather natural materials like moss, seeds or bark

Procedure:

(1)   Instruct students to make a two sided mask. The first side represents the side they show to the world. The second side shows their true or higher self which they keep hidden.

(2)   Give participants about five minutes per side.

(3)   I find you may want to set a time limit for each side. More artistic students may want to get involved with the artistic aspects of this project.

(4)   When they are finished have students share their mask.......

Alternatives:

(1)   To simplify and speed up this activity you can use paper plates and crayons.

(2)   You can also  provide strings so they can actually wear the mask.

(3)   To up it a notch have students swap masks and share what that is like.

Notes: I have found this activity to be subtly powerful in some situations. Participants may reveal information you were unaware of and you may want to make sure you have time later on for individual follow up.

Activity Credit: Inspired by Lynn Duus

35 Shields 

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials:

(1)   Colored Markers

(2)   5x7 cards

(3)   It's good to have several examples of shields from different cultures.

(4)   With older audiences I show the McAlpin Crest. It has the severed head of Kenneth McAlpin, the first king of Scotland, with the words: “Remember the death of McAlpin.” Talk about your family baggage!

Procedure:

(1)   Explain to participants that they are going to make a shield which represents their emotional self.

(2)   Ask students to think of symbols and values that are important to them.

(3)   Ask students to use the colored markers to create a shield which represents how they feel most of the time. Ie what is their dominant feeling state? Neutral, mischievous, sad, happy-go-lucky?

Alternatives: What people put in front of them (their shields and defenses) can be quite revealing. This activity can easily take up the whole group.

Notes: Shields have a long and ancient history across all cultures. With the advent of gunpowder and the rifle they ceased to have value in the field.  They remained a fixture in many homes. Walk into any proud Scottish home and you will find the shield with a family crest. Some indigenous people here on turtle island retain shields from other days. In those days shields functioned as a sort of ID. You could look at a shield and know which clan or tribe that person came from.

Activity Credit: Inspired by Lynn Duus

NATURE CONCEPT

36 LEAVES

Preparation Time: 5-10 minutes

Materials Needed: A variety of leaves. They can be from many different trees or shrubs.

Procedure:

1)  This activity is best done outside and can be a seasonal transition activity*

2)  This activity is best done outside or on an outing.

3)  “Pick one leaf for what your hike was like today.”

Notes: *I often do transitional check ins and check outs when the seasons shift. They provide concrete anchoring points. “Pick one leaf for what your fall was like and one leaf for what you'd like your winter to be like.”

37 WEATHER

Preparation Time: 5 minutes to 1 hour

Materials Needed: None or cards you make yourself

Procedure:

1)      Ask the students if they were weather today what kind of weather would they be? Verbal prompts are recommended: Are you sunny, overcast or cloudy?

Alternatives:

Advanced Outdoor Option:

(an older science class or outdoor trip perhaps). Have students describe their mood on a continuum of weather along with the specific type of cloud. Here is a quick list for reference points.

(1) Cirrus

(2) Contrail

(3) Altostratus

(4)  Altocumulus

(5)  Nimbostratus

(6)  Stratocumulus

(7) Stratus

(8)  Cumulus

Notes: This is a quickie, back pocket type of check- in. You may, however, want to help students explore the subtleties and nuances of their check-in. A student may be cloudy but the clouds will be passing soon. You might point out that clouds bring rain which is necessary for flowers and other living things. Little moments like this can help you teach students the value of processing emotions of all shades. 

How I Became a Feminist: Part Two

previous 

There were multiple issues emerging here: The ongoing homophobia at that school, a whole generation of females who had no sense of history about civil rights giants spanning from Alice Paul to Gloria Steinem and beyond, and of course their befuddlement at how a macho alpha male spouted feminist philosophy.

So many times in school what’s happening underneath what’s happening is much more interesting. I could understand their confusion. The town they lived was the home to an extremist fundamentalist church. Diversity was nearly non-existent. The school was about 98% Caucasian, 1% Native American, and 1% Hispanic. The students had few if any models of adults who embraced and walked civil rights values. They may have learned the history of civil rights and suffragettes in history class but it seemed dead, distant and remote to them.

The music they often chose denigrated women. Females in the school system became sexualized at a very early age. More than one commentator has observed that girls as young as nine today dress like 21 year old women.

With all this background experience, it was no wonder that my pronouncement that I was a feminist must have confused them. My personal presentation was contradictory in their minds. I hunted, I taught yoga. I was calm and forceful at the same time.

My own emergence as an advocate of equal rights for all, however, did not come naturally to me. The town I grew up in town was a larger version of the school I worked in. The Caucasian people were threatened by the Hispanic people. It was not considered improper to make jokes about people of other races. I had few examples of strong women except for my sister.

I would like to say I became a feminist because I am a highly evolved spiritually attuned individual like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King but the reality comes from a more primal and immature base.  My reasoning is simple:

•       Inequality is boring. I don’t like being bored.
•       I value my personal freedom so highly that I fear if any one group of people loses their equality my own might be threatened.
•       Over 50% of the people in the world are women.
•       I love this earth.
•       Our world is in great distress and needs all the brainpower and cooperation we can muster. Disenfranchising over 50% of the potential source of solutions is just downright foolish.
•       Because I am a heterosexual, romantic life and companionship would be so boring without having an equal partner. I don’t like being bored.

I do not know if my sister would call herself a feminist. I have never asked. All I saw was that Jan did exactly what she wanted to do. If she wanted to ski, climb mountains or get pretty or dirty, nobody questioned her. At only five feet two inches tall she has always been a force to be reckoned with.

It took years of listening to stories of girls and women and how they experienced American culture to bring my male alpheness to bear on the dynamic of ongoing inequality. I listened to my wife talk about how she was told that she would earn less because men needed to support their families. She was a single mother at the time. I listened to girls at the school I worked in tell tales of being verbally abused by the superintendent. I grew nauseous around guy cultures that degraded females.

More to come! Stay Tuned!

Landing and Launching: Installment #14

30 Finger Puppets

Preparation time: Five minutes plus a shopping trip

Materials: A variety of duplicate finger puppets

Procedure:

(1)   Participants are standing.

(2)   Instruct participants to choose finger puppets that reflect their day so far.

(3)   After participants have chosen a finger puppet ask them to find a person who has an identical or similar finger puppet.

(4)   When they find their partner ask them to share why they chose that particular finger puppet.

Alternatives:

(1)   Depending on the size of the group you can ask the group to do this in triads and then quads.

Notes

31 Healthy Family 

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials: none

(a)    If my family was a feast it would be? What sort of feast would a healthy family prepare?

(b)   A healthy family would look like? Give us a verbal picture of your family that is so detailed it's like we are all there personally.

(c)    A healthy family would smell like? What smells come from the kitchen, the living room, individual people. Close your eyes and recall the smell of your favorite meal.

(d)   What would be the texture of a healthy family? Rough, smooth, rippling,corrugated?

(e)    What would be the rules of a healthy family?

Procedure:

Write the above questions on a white or chalk board. If this is not available write the above questions on a card that students can pass around and reference during their turn.

Alternatives:

Notes: This activity requires some imagination and a departure from concrete thinking.

32 Universal Symbols 

Preparation time: 30 minutes to make cards

Materials: Either on cards or tangible objects

(1)   Dove

(2)   Olive Branch

(3)   Spiral

(4)   Quartered Circle

(5)   All Seeing Eye: Seen on dollar bills

(6)   Alchemy: the original junk science today a symbol for the quest of knowledge

(7)   Egyptian Ankh: Once the symbol of the Ancient Egyptian religion, now a defunct peace symbol

(8)   Angel: Protection, guidance

(9)   Arrow(sometimes bow and arrow together): Symbolizes power swiftness the hunt knowledge

(10)                       Crystal Ball: Looking into the future, clarity

(11)                       Butterfly: Change Transformation

(12)                       Compass Rose

(13)                       Circle

(14)                       Infinity Symbol

(15)                       Circle with a dot in the center: Union of male and female

(16)                       Quartered Circle: Four directions, Four elements

(17)                       Masonic Compass: Balance between physical and spiritual

(18)                       Crescent Moon:

(19)                       Dragon

(20)                       Dream catcher

(21)                       Fleur di Lis: Used by boy scouts, mason, ancient symbol found on many shields

(22)                       Labyrinths

(23)                       Lightning Bolt

(24)                       Lion: Power ferocity bravery

(25)                       Mirror

(26)                       Mandela

(27)                       Owl: change death wisdom

(28)                       Peace Symbol

(29)                       Phoenix

(30)                       Snake: knowledge to some evil to others

(31)                       Spiral

(32)                       Triangle inside of circle

(33)                       Sphinx: guardian of mysteries

(34)                       Spiral

(35)                       Sun face

(36)                       Moon

(37)                       Yin-Yang or Tao: balance

(38)                       Triangle

(39)                       Trident

(40)                       Unicorn

(41)                       Wheel

(42)                       Wishbone

(43)                       Cupid

(44)                       Broken/split heart

(45)                       Bundle of sticks or arrows

(46)                       Tree of Life

Procedure:

(1)   Lay out your cards or props in the center of your circle

(2)   Ask participants to choose a symbol or two that has relevance for their present state

(3)   Participants share one at a time or popcorn style.

Alternatives: Starting in a circle is a common perhaps overused way to begin processing. Think of other ways you can distribute your props. If you're outside spread them over a fairly large area and have participants pick one and return to the circle. The act of wandering with intention will often produce more clarity with some individuals.

Notes: This is a short list of symbols that I have found to register with most people. Universal symbols generally have ancient roots and seem to register instantly with most people. Some symbols like the snake have different meanings to different cultures. Christians will associate snakes with the fall of man. Another culture, noting the snake's ability to shed its skin each year, will associate the snake with the ability to change. Symbols such as the ubiquitous Yin-Yang in one culture but resonate with so many that they become universal

33 Magnetic Poetry 

Preparation time: A shopping trip or patient time spent collecting magnets

Materials: Magnetic words. I prefer the original set designed by Dave Kapell but if you are patient you can obtain a complete set merely by collecting the ubiquitous promotional magnets offered by insurance salespeople, military recruiters, restaurants and purveyors of useless curriculum. When they ask if you want a magnet ask for two. With the extra sharp scissors you've liberated from the art department snip out the individual words and put them in the Altoids tins you've been saving for just this purpose.

Procedure:

(a)    Give each student an Altoid or similarly sized tin with a small assortment of words.

(b)   Instruct them to write a sentence or short poem that summarizes their morning.

(c)    Students will most likely have to share or swap words

Alternatives: Have students

Notes: By design, even with the original set, you will have a limited number of words. Rather than be seen as limiting, this adds a challenge.

How I Became A Feminist:Part One

How I Became a Feminist

Zen zealots would shudder at the average middle school yoga class. These are not always the quiet meditative adult style classes full of peace seeking vegetarians and people full of quiet deliberate contemplation. These are middle schoolers, the bullet train phase of human development. Moments of peace come but it is often a hard fought peace full of frequent redirection. Moments of peace occur, however, and over persistent time it will become a true yoga experience.

We were halfway through a series of sun salutations when Ashley blurted “Jeff, who did you vote for?” Ah, politics. It was two days after Obama’s victory and it was fresh on everybody’s minds. Although I frequently engaged in politalk with staff I generally avoided that topic with students. I told Ashley that I preferred to keep my vote to myself. She persisted, however.

I was still stuck in my low lunge so I sat on the ground and said.

“Well, I prefer to keep my vote to myself but I tend to favor candidates who believe in the same things I do: social justice, equality for all etc. And of course since I work for schools I tend to favor candidates who will support public education both philosophically and financially.”

“I knew it! You voted for Obama didn’t you!?”

It’s easier to lie to my mother than to lie to a middle schooler. The election was over. It was a historic occasion and so I figured what the heck.

“Yes I voted for Obama but I actually favored Hillary in the primary.”

“Why did you vote for Hillary?’

Without skipping a beat I said “I voted for Hillary because I’m a feminist. I think it’s time women got a chance to be president. They’ve only been able to vote for less than one hundred years. Plus I think we need a no nonsense person in the Middle East.”

Ashley was briefly quiet. A strange, awkward and uncomfortable look came over her face. Then she blurted out again.

“Oh my God, you’re a homosexual? But I thought you were married?!”

“What?”

“You just said you were a homosexual. I thought you were married.”

“No, I said I was a feminist. What makes you think I’m a homosexual? Besides what if I was? Would that make any difference in how you looked at me?”

Kids who came into my room knew I had zero tolerance for bigotry of any stripe. I had a familiar mantra that perhaps some had memorized through their years of contact with me. I do not allow ethnic, racial, religious, gender, class, social, sexual preference or political slurs of any type. They knew this but still slipped with the common and familiar slurs of puberty.

“Faggot”

“That’s so gay.”

With these slips I had another refrain I repeated.

“You know evidence shows that the more people make fun of gay people the more they are confused about their own sexuality. And that’s no big deal because I want you to know I support you in any choices you make. But I’m the drug and alcohol counselor so I don’t really know much about that stuff. I can, however, refer you to a specialist in that area if you wish. Would you like to stay after group so we can talk about that in private some more?”

I would often follow this up with stating that sometimes I really wished I was gay because when I talked to my wife I often had difficulty transcending the male female communication gap. I would joke and say if I was talking to a man at least we’d be talking the same language.

I consciously played upon their insecurities while at the same time reinforcing my zero tolerance policy and it usually worked to get my point across. Inevitably one kid would ask if I was gay and I had the same comeback every time.

“No I’m not actually but would it matter if I was? Would you treat me differently?”

Ashley had sat through more than one of these lectures but clearly had missed a few key points. She clearly hadn’t paid attention during my “you girls need to stick together and quit tearing each other down because there’s plenty of people waiting in line to tear you down” lectures either.

I began to grasp the tendrils of Ashley’s thought patterns. She equated being a feminist with being a homosexual. Wow. I still had a lot of education to do.

Next

Who Changed The Rules?

Many moons ago in a boomer land far far away an ancient code held sway. Few strayed from that code.Those who did were considered outcasts, odd people, misfits. For all saw the wisdom of that code. The code predated boomer culture by many thousands of years. The code was simple:

• Teenagers try to be sneaky and get away with stuff.
• Adults try to catch them.
• Adults know this happens and spend a great deal of time and energy trying to catch kids.
• Sometimes adults  resort to ancient tactics "You know what you did wrong" in an attempt to trick kids.
• Few kids fell for that trick more than once.

It may have been a false world but that's the world I grew up in. Adult world and kid world did not mix. We did stuff we were not supposed to do like toilet paper and egg houses, smoke pot, chew tobacco, skinny dip in Mr Roger's pool ( a real person in my neighborhood), steal watermelons from the neighbor's garden, driving too fast, drink alcohol, jump from bridges too high (yes dad I would jump off a bridge if my friends did, especially if they double dog dared me).

Adults did stuff they were not supposed to do too. They drank too much sometimes,drove under the influence had affairs and cheated on their income taxes.

But these two worlds seldom mixed.When they did, everybody was uncomfortable because they knew that an ancient balance had been disrupted.Of course there were "cool" parents who smoked pot and drank with their kids. But they were oddballs.

Today, though, the rules have changed. Kid world and adult world mix far too often. Whether it's a mother throwing a kegger for her daughter's sweet sixteen birthday party or a grandmother buying her a grandson a bong for Christmas or parents giving kids cigarettes for babysitting, it's a world that baffles me. I have no answers but I do have a lot of questions.

Landing and Launching: Installment #13

27 Emotions Charades

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials: None

Procedure:

(1)   Explain to the group that 80% of communication is nonverbal.

(2)   Ask participants to think of the main emotion they are feeling exactly at this present moment.

(3)   Give them a minute of think time.

(4)   When it seems like they are ready ask each participant in turn to create an exaggerated body posture which displays their feeling.

(5)   The rest of the group participants try to guess what emotion that person is trying to express.

(6)    If the group cannot guess exactly what emotion is being presented, allow the person to share what emotion it is they are feeling.

Alternatives: After you have done this activity a few times you can bring it to a more subtle level. At the beginning of group instruct students to sit while one person tries to guess what each of them is feeling.

Notes:

Being able to read people and their feelings is a survival skill for many children from alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional families. You will often find that they excel at this activity. Being hyper aware of other's feelings can be also be trait of codependency. As the joke goes: “You're feeling good, how am I?” For others reading people can be a useful skill in future employment. I have found that being able to scan and quickly read a group of people is very useful in situations ranging from being on a river to sitting in a staff meeting. You do want to be careful with people projecting their feelings on others.

28 Archetypes

Preparation time Fifteen minutes (some background reading in Jung or another source on archetypes will add depth to your understanding of this activity.)

Materials: (this list in columns)

(a)    Poet

(b)   Warrior

(c)    Magician/Priest

(d)   King/Queen/Chief

(e)    Crone

(f)    Warrior

(g)   Hunter

(h)   Fool/Clown

(i)     Trickster

(j)     Hermit

(k)   Wise One

(l)     Teacher

(m) Artist

Procedure:

Explain that throughout history certain stock characters occur consistently across all cultures. Some cultures have their own unique variations but the source is the same. All have equal value in the make up of human society. In medieval culture the fool could speak truths without fear of reprisal. In Lakota culture the heyoka (backwards person) did everything backwards. If you were unsure of how to behave you merely had to watch the heyoka and do the opposite. At other times the heyoka created opportunity for focus. While he performed his ceremony you were not to watch or be distracted. It was a way of teaching the community to keep focused.

Alternatives: After watching South Park for a while I noticed that the four main characters fitted neatly into four archetypes:

l  Kenny: Priest magician or perhaps messianic figure, continually dying and being reborn 

l  Cartman: Warrior/Boss, while immature Cartman represents the shadow side of the warrior

l  Kyle:  Martyr, always being picked on because of his religion

l  Stan : Lover. Always falling head over heels  in love with Wendy

Notes: I f you really want to delve into the archetypes using South Park watch a few shows as distasteful as some of the episodes  might be. I watch South Park and listen to music that kids listen to every now and then just to keep tuned up on what's going into their brain,

29 Parts of a Car

Preparation time: five minutes

Materials: None, perhaps a a real toy car to pass around as a visual aid

(a)    Wheel: Direction

(b)   Tires: Motivation What's driving your car

(c)    Interior: What does it/you look like inside?

(d)   What's on the radio. What tapes are playing now?

(e)    What is the view from the driver' seat? What do you see that others don't?

(f)    Suspension: What holds us up? Are we in alignment? Do our actions match our beliefs?

(g)   Oil/fluid level: On a physical level do we drink enough water. What are we putting into our systems?

(h)   Battery: What's our energy level?

Procedure:

Explain that if if we think of ourselves as a car each part of the car can represent an aspect of ourselves. You can use some or all of the above questions. If you use more than five questions you will most likely want to use the handout or have the questions on a chalkboard.

Alternatives:

Notes: Of all the counseling theories I was either exposed or subjected to over the years, William Glasser's Reality Therapy always made the most sense. It's easily understandable by both counselors and clients. It's rooted in practical sense and the basics can be remembered for a long time.

Activity Credit: Adapted from activities learned while working at Circle S Residential Treatment Center