After teaching a lesson, how often have we thought to ourselves, “My students said they loved the lesson, but they were just being nice”? Well, it’s time to stop discounting the positive and bring mindfulness into our classroom by recognizing these common “thought traps!”.

It’s not a secret that mental health is at the forefront of our student’s minds. While planning a mental health unit with my co-teacher for 9th grade health class, we aimed to answer the question: “What will be helpful for students who already know a lot about mental health?” During our collaboration, we came across the idea of using information from our staff summer reading book: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (Lukianoff, Haidt 2018). It sparked deep conversations amongst faculty, so why not bring it to health class to see what our students thought about it too? 

Here’s an outline of how we taught this, and I hope you can gain some insight on incorporating a new tool for your students to add to their mental health toolbox. The lesson begins with the introduction of using a spectrum to help students explore the fluidity of experiences to identify mental health versus mental illness. The students are familiar with the concept of a spectrum in other units we study—including sex ed and substances. After watching part of this video, students partnered up at the white board and created their own spectrum using just the mental health vertical axis. They explored examples from their own experiences and reflected on what might move them up or down the spectrum or why they had a different result with the same experience. Next was an interactive gallery walk exploring each other’s connections, adding a star next to the ones they agreed with, and a “Q” for any questions to discuss as a class. During the discussion, grief stood out to several students, as it was placed on the higher end of the spectrum. They shared personal stories and realized that the way one copes with grief can shift their perspective and position on the spectrum, either moving them up or down. 

Shifting into mindful thought around our experiences with mental health, the class read an expert from the staff book to dive deeper: The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings (pg. 33-40). Students discussed the cover and title, read and annotated the passage, and ended with a discussion. This transitioned into the thought traps project focused on cognitive distortions, which stem from the field of cognitive behavior therapy introduced in the book. The quote used to kick off this assignment was: 

“Cognitive distortions are internal mental filters or biases that increase our misery, fuel our anxiety, and make us feel bad about ourselves. Our brains are continually processing lots of information. To deal with this, our brains seek shortcuts to cut down our mental burden. Sometimes these shortcuts are helpful, yet in other circumstances—such as with these unhelpful cognitive filters—they can cause more harm than good.” 

(Harvard Health Publishing. “How to Recognize and Tame Your Cognitive Distortions” Harvard Health Blog, 4 May 2022).

Thought Traps Project Snapshot: 

• Randomly select a cognitive distortion to research, using this link as a guide to start.
• Create an interactive two page “flip” poster to be displayed around the school.
  • Top page: Include a thought-provoking statement representing the cognitive distortion and a “flip to learn more” prompt.
  • Underneath page: A second poster that highlights key information, including the definition, two examples, and how-to-deal tips on challenging the thought trap. 

Before displaying around the school, the class did a silent gallery walk and discussion. Students placed three star stickers on the three cognitive distortions that resonated with them the most. Nearly all of the thought traps received a few stickers, and the class discussed together before reflecting individually by completing a worksheet. A memorable student insight shared was: “I didn’t realize that how we think can impact our health.” 

If you do this lesson with your class, I wonder which thought traps are the most prevalent and how your students transfer and connect to the skills and information throughout the year. This concept was taught near the beginning of the course and was referred to often throughout other units to help support the skill of interpersonal communication. Our students gained a valuable new mental health tool, and our counseling team appreciated seeing key concepts they emphasize also being reinforced in Health class. Win-win!

Kudos: I couldn’t have done this without my incredible collaborator and fellow teacher Niki Harris who inspires everyone to dig deeper and is always willing to explore wild and ambitious ideas.

This microblog post was a featured post in #slowchathealth’s #microblogmonth event. You can search for all of the featured posts here. Please do follow each of the outstanding contributors on social media (including Kayla Robertson, the author of this post) and consider writing a microblog post of your own to be shared with the global audience of slowchathealth.com

Pair this post with the following:

‘Sticky Learning’ Strategies by Dr. Kim Morton

5 Small Mindset Shifts by Dr. Cara Grant

 Being Physically Active in Content Review by Mike Kuczala

Who Owns the Magical Moments? by Dr. Bob Knipe

Have you read the latest Book of the Month recommendation?