Let’s try something. Look at your hands. Really look at them. What different colors do you see? How do the wrinkles on one hand compare to the other? Notice how the lines on your fingerprints seem to radiate out from a center. Do you feel any sensations in your fingers? Any tingling? Where? Are your hands cold? Warm? Sweaty? Stop reading for a minute and just explore your hands.
Thanks for playing along. You’ve just meditated. There are so many definitions of meditation floating around these days, but the one that resonates with me, and that I want to impart to my students is: “training your mind to pay attention to what is actually happening“. It sounds simple, but it requires know-how and practice. Most of my students have exactly zero experience or background in meditation. So, I wanted to develop a little series of three lessons that could serve as a sort of “first contact” that might pique their curiosity and encourage them to seek out more info on their own.
Meditation Day 1 – Stressing Stress and Raisin Awareness
Language Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Time: 50 minutes
I. Warm-Up (3 min)
- Seat students in groups of 4.
- Put two statements on the screen:
- 1) _______________________ can be harmful – distracting you from enjoying your life and interfering with attempts to solve the problems it causes.
- 2) If you do nothing to stop it, it can even make you physically ill. So dealing with ______________________ is important.
- Have the groups shout out words that they think complete both statements. Elicit “stress”.
- (Some example student guesses: “waking up”, “my parents”, “North Korea”, “English”)
II. Exploring Stress (15 min)
- Working with their groups or individually, have students read and complete the Stress Gap Fill:
Why does stress exist?
From an (1) ev__________________ary perspective, stress is primarily designed to help us get out of physical danger. When we feel (2) thr_______________ed, a part of our brain called the amygdala (편도체) sets off an alarm bell to warn us. This warning triggers the (3) “f____________t or fl____________t” response of our (4) n______________ system (신경계), making us ready to respond. Our blood is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and (5) res___________________n (호흡). These (6) h_________________s allow us to transport oxygen to our (7) m________________s quickly so we are able to “act fast”. While this helped our ancestors with the threat of hungry saber-toothed tigers, it doesn’t help us much with modern-day worries, like losing our USB with all our homework saved on it. But our body’s (8) resp_____________ is still the same.
Why is stress so damaging?
Stress stops the normal (9) f_________________ing of our body. The body thinks there’s a threat, so it tries to get out of immediate danger by shutting down non-essential systems that take-up up energy. Our digestive processes, immune system, growth and reproductive processes are (10) inh_______________ed.
A bit of stress can be useful in improving our memory and enhancing performance. However, too much, too often, is extremely damaging to our mental and physical well-being. It can lead to stomach ulcers (궤양), heart problems, and many other illnesses.
- Review the reading and discuss any difficult terms. Answers:
1)evolutionary, 2)threatened, 3)fight or flight, 4)nervous, 5)respiration, 6)hormones, 7)muscles, 8)response, 9)functioning, 10)inhibited - Ask students: “Now that we know lots of stress is a bad thing, what can we do to minimize it?” Have each group come up with a Top 5 List of ways to reduce stress. Then have groups share their answers and record them on the board. Lead a little discussion about what they think are the most effective ways and why.
III. Meditation Intro (10 min)
- Transition to meditation by saying, “One method is getting more and more attention these days.” If students already came up with meditation, call their attention to it. If not, introduce it.
- Lead students through the Intro to Meditation PPT:
IV. Scientific Evidence (12 min)
- On the last slide of the PPT, briefly introduce the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex and tell students we are going to check out the science of meditation.
- Hand out Scientific Evidence Gap Fill, and have students read and complete with their groups. Review answers by having groups read sentences chorally, and check comprehension as a whole class. Answers:
1)drops, 2)damaging, 3)balanced, 4)physically, 5)amygdala, 6)density
V. Raisin Meditation (5 min)
- Tell students, now that we have some scientific evidence of the benefits of meditation, we are going to practice a little meditation ourselves.
- Allow students to wash/disinfect their hands if they wish, and give one raisin to each student.
- Tell them we are going to use the raisin to meditate and that all they have to do is listen to my instructions and only do what I say, nothing more.
- Proceed by reading the Raisin Meditation Script or playing the Raisin Meditation Audio:
VI. Wrap-Up (5 min)
- Hand out Raisin Meditation Reflection, and have students complete as an exit ticket. We will use their questions and comments in future classes. The questions they should answer are:
- What do you think about the raisin meditation? How do you feel? Explain in two complete sentences.
- What do you wonder about meditation in general? What are you curious about? Write at least one complete question.
Materials:
– Stress Gap Fill
– Intro to Meditation
– Scientific Evidence Gap Fill
– Raisin Meditation Script
– Raisin Meditation Audio
– Raisin Meditation Reflection
– Bag of raisins
Busan Teacher 