Today is my first day back at work. Welcome to being a teacher. I took my vacation, and now the work of the summer begins. The easy part is simply setting up The Book. What is The Book? That is the calendar for the whole year, my lesson plan, and what will be my attendance record and grade record. It is probably the most important tool I use. In the past, I tried doing it with my computer, but as I go into my eighth year of teaching, I am finding that it is better if I use a traditional method and write it all out.
The first thing is just getting the school calendar all entered and then using the calendar to build the curriculum for three different preps (classes that I teach). My three scheduled preps are AP Psychology, College Preparatory US History and World History for English Language Learners. I have taught all three before, but this is my first time teaching World History for students who will need a far more visual form of teaching than I have done in the past.
While I have many approaches to my pedagogy and my curriculum choices, if there was one major theme to my teaching, it is to try and make the subject matter relevant to my students.
While I was paging through Facebook today, I found an article about the 11 Habits of People with Concealed Depression. Depression is an important subject in my school. My students are some of the highest achieving in the country (we usually have close to 100 National Merit Semi-Finalists, over 80% will attend a four-year college out of high school, and 94% will take at least one AP test before they graduate.) These kids are stressed and many are challenged with depression. We had a student take her own life last year and have had a number of other students who were in treatment after attempts, so the entire staff has all been made very aware that we need to address stress and depression in our curriculum, especially those of us who teach psychology.
I don't actually discuss depression and anxiety in detail until Unit 12 (of 14), so I want to bring discussions about stress and depression from the beginning. I think I am going to use depression as a way to normalize psychological treatment and professions, which is in Unit 1 and 2. I took the list and modified it for my lecture.
#1 - Many students who are depressed constantly make efforts to appear fine, and maybe even seem exponentially happy and upbeat.
This is one of the problems with the students, they think that their friends are fine. The friend seems ok. They go through the emotions, they talk in class, they don't walk around in same clothes or the other things that popular media shows to indicate that a character is depressed.
Therapists and counselors have to look past the masks and see the feelings underneath. What can make this difficult for professionals is that even though they know they need treatment, depressed people will deny that they need help or have excuses as to why they haven't gotten help.
#2 - Many students who are depressed may have habitual remedies.
Students (and honestly people in general) don't usually get to the state where they are lying in bed and doing nothing day after day. It's not that it doesn't happen, but students especially, as well as people with roommates, siblings, or other people who live with them are more likely to hide their depression.
They may do this with self-medication (alcohol, pot, or other substances). They also might engage in soothing behaviors like repetitive crafts, playing video games, writing, exercise, or just taking long walks. The key is for therapists and counselors to watch for behaviors that are engaged in to distract, not produce (although in the case of knitting or other crafts, something will be made, but there will be little variety and the person will become rather obsessed.)
#3 - Many students who are depressed may have trouble with abandonment.
Depression often comes from fear. One of the big fears of the students is that they don't have any friends. They are often feeling alienated from their families while dealing with friendships and romantic relationships that are incredibly intense.
Therapists and counselors are working with people are often worried about getting help. There is stigma with treatment, but treatment means forging a rapport with a stranger while dealing with the fear that the depressed person may build the trust, only to lose it.
Etc.
There are eight more, but that's the idea I am going with. I figure I will get some appropriate gifs, some you tube videos and come up with a writing prompt and turn it into one of my first presentations during the year.
That's how my first day back at work went.
Spotify even gave me a song to incorporate into the lecture. Hopefully it isn't too dated.
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