Moral Education: Happiness and Self-Esteem

Here is an introduction to lessons at CGK Afterschool.

CGK's eight-week-long project works will be based on the main “Driving Question”.

Here are the Driving Questions for this "Moral" lesson.

What does it take as a society to make people happy and self-esteem boosters?

We followed this question with fun lessons each week that drew the student's interest.

Here are the comments of Mr. Bobby, the teacher who was in charge of the lessons.

Week 1

Students introduced to the subject about happiness. Using SEE/THINK/WONDER, students were shown pictures of happy children and people and discussed why they might be. The first I also introduced how to self-regulate their emotions and feelings, as learning to control their feelings and different exercises or brain breaks can help with their feelings of happiness.

Week 2

Students learned about different techniques used to calm down and how to balloon breath. As a class we created an anchor chart on different types of ways to calm down and control ourselves.

Week 3

Students were introduced to brain breaks and yoga. By using yoga student can learn to move to their breath and control their feelings and be more mindful to event around them.

Week 4

Students were introduced to the final project about discussing happiness and ways that we can control our feelings and be able to self-regulate. Looking at key words and using different activities to achieve this. We looked at our anchor chart often and watched a few videos on self-regulation.

Week 5

Students began to lock in their ideas for the final project. The final presentation is teaching something they learned in the class, it could be a breathing technique, yoga, or about happiness and what it means to them. Exit tickets began this week to check their understanding.

Week 6

Students broken into their pairs and started to work on their final project and what they will be presenting. Two groups talked about happiness and how/what makes them happy and what it means to them. One group taught us how to balloon breath and why it is important for us to self-regulate.

Week 7

Students finalized their art or keynote presentation and practiced speaking using the microphone and worked out their speeches.

Week 8

Presentation day. Students shared their work and then as a class we had a discussion about what it means to self-regulate, why it’s important, things they learned in the class, what was difficult, what they want to learn more about and happiness.

Among the various emotions, we can spend more enjoyable days if we spend more time feeling "happy".

The students were facing themselves while challenging specific methods of yoga and breathing exercises, and at the same time, they were thinking about caring for others as well.

It is difficult to think and discuss about things that we cannot see, but I could feel their growth as they gradually began to speak up and have their own ideas.

We will continue to enjoy learning from them!