Book 11 Part 1 of Wolakota – Life Skills for Teens is designed for ninth graders to continue this systematic approach of health and healing through culturally based education. Wolakota is a guiding principle in the old Lakota 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 Lakota 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: College/Vocation/Entrepreneurial preparation, how to plan for a good future, understanding trauma through the physical and mental body, understanding the relationship between our people and nature.
Emotional health: the power of resilience and bouncing back from trauma, overcoming loneliness and isolation, coping tools with loss and grief, developing personal financial tools and budgeting.
Spiritual health: Exploring core Lakota values, the gifts of a life of service, praying at difficult times, learning and respecting spiritual diversity.
Mental health: Exploring addiction: facts, prevention, and recovery, Wolakota in action: your power to change the world, walking with your ancestors, be authentic! Finding strength through purpose
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 Lakota 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.
