Over the last few weeks I have noticed the importance of SPHE in the school environment. Students at such a young age are starting to grow and develop as adults. They begin to think and ask more questions about life, learning and much more. It is an exciting time in their life, however it can also be quite scary. Students begin to grow and develop as they mature. However, a lot of students can become quite self-conscious and can feel down about themselves, their appearance, their ability to learn, their friends and much more. Their head becomes clogged up with all life’s worries and they become quite depressed as they reflect on their life.
SPHE is a important subject that helps teachers to confront these issues and talk through things with students that might worry them. Over the past few weeks I have been focusing on self-identity and how we need to be able to identify our strengths, as well as our weaknesses. It is quite worrying how students shy away from talking about themselves because they do not feel important. This week I incorporated many activities into the lesson to help students begin thinking about themselves. I first got students to write a description about themselves, i.e. who they were, what they are interested, etc. I then wrote each student’s name on an envelope and in the envelope I had left a compliment about the student. Then I told the whole class that they had to write a compliment about each person in the class and then they would put the compliments in the envelopes and the students would bring the envelopes home and read things about themselves that they never would have considered. I got this idea from another blog http://muinteoir-valerie.blogspot.ie/.
My students can be quite a worried bunch as their self-confidence is quite low. I found a wonderful video that I cannot wait to show them next week. It is titled Love From Future You. I think it is a wonderful video that really helps encapsulate the idea that life may be tough now, but it will get better. It reiterates the idea that there is light at the end of the tunnel and I think it will really help show the students that its okay to have worries, but we cannot let them take over our lives.
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