Book 9 Part 2 of Wodakota – Life Skills for Teens is designed for ninth graders to continue this systematic approach of health and healing through culturally based education. Wodakota is a guiding principle in the old Dakota world – which means striving to live in balance, peace, harmony.
The goal of this curriculum is to give our youth the tools to make healthy choices, build resilience, and create healthy self-esteem so that our students can begin to thrive.
– To give our youth the tools to make healthy choices in all areas of their lives.
– Continued education on how to break the cycle of addiction.
– Tools to choose life over death; a guide to have healthy relationships.
– Strengthen dakota identity through the lens of education of cultural teachings.
– Empowerment through their intellectual inheritance, self-control and impulse control.
– Promote healthy life choices
– A traditional whole-body medicine wheel approach, viewing each of us in four parts; the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of ourselves that we refer to as “bodies.”
– Helping the child to understand that each “body” is equality important to educate, nurture and develop in order to be able to walk a balanced life.
Physical health: exploring food as fuel and understanding eating disorders, exploring the effects of alcohol/drugs, how to respond to bulling, teen sex and pregnancy – know the facts before you choose.
Emotional health: Creating healthy boundaries and staying safe from trafficking, understanding trauma and how it affects our brain, tools to deal with depression and thoughts of suicide, practices to help us heal and develop emotional intelligence.
Spiritual health: Your relationship to your self – self-talk, exploring a Native approach to addiction and prevention, how to start finding your purpose in life, gratitude and other practices that build our spiritual intelligence.
Mental health: Organizational skills: managing your time and energy, digital intelligence – assessing the pros and cons, good communication – the key to a fulfilling life, strengthening your mind
The students will go around the medicine wheel 8 times (4 times during each semester).
o Opens with Health & Wellness Practices (meditation, tapping, talking circles, journaling) to take the youth from a stress/trauma brain to a learning/creative brain.
o Read aloud by students and teachers with interactive activities for each lesson.
o Incorporates Dakota language words and ancestral wisdom.
o Students go over each lesson in one week. Monday and Tuesday students read the lesson and do the activities. Wednesday is to explore the ancestor story. Thursday is used for the Art Therapy project. Friday is utilized for anything that needed more time during the week
*Teacher’s Manual – check out to see what these include. It is designed so any teacher can teach it.
