Unbreakable: Developing Resilience for Life's Challenges
How can we build the inner strength and skills needed to face challenges and bounce back from adversity?
How to Use This Lesson
This is a Harmony Student Wellness lesson, a week-long, music-centered social-emotional learning lesson designed to be taught across multiple sessions, culminating in an arts-based project. This lesson can be taught in isolation or as part of the larger Harmony Student Wellness program. For more support on implementation, see the Implementation Guide on the program page.
Essential Question
How can we build the inner strength and skills needed to face challenges and bounce back from adversity?
Objectives
Mastery Objective:
- Students will be able to identify and apply four key components of resilience (inner strength, community support, stress management techniques, and building mastery) by analyzing insights from featured artist interviews and music.
Day 1 - Students will:
- Watch a clip of a Kendrick Lamar interview
- Define resilience as a learnable skill for handling and bouncing back from challenges
- Recognize the importance of inner strength as it relates to resilience
Day 2 - Students will:
- Watch a clip of Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden interviewing Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz
- Identify how supportive relationships can help us handle challenges
- Consider how success stories from others can help build our resilience
Day 3 - Students will:
- Listen to “Shallow Water” by Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah
- Learn the T.I.P.P. strategy for managing big emotions
- Consider why it is important to be able to manage stress and other big emotions
Day 4 - Students will:
- Watch an interview clip of Rihanna
- Explain how making small, consistent improvements in chosen skills builds confidence and resilience over time
- Consider possible goals and/or skills they can try to build mastery in
Arts-Based Activity - Students will:
- Synthesize their understanding of resilience by creating visual art that uses the imagery of nature growing through challenging conditions to represent human strength.
Background
In this lesson, students define resilience and learn four ways to build it. Students begin by exploring inner strength through Kendrick Lamar's metaphor of developing a solid “inner core” - a foundation they can draw upon when facing challenges. They then explore how supportive relationships help build resilience, learn practical stress management techniques through the T.I.P.P. strategy, and discover how building mastery leads to confidence and resilience over time. The lesson culminates in students creating visual art to process and express their understanding of resilience.
Materials
Required for all lessons:
- Student Journals
- Art Supplies
Arts-Based Activity: