This year I’m taking the safest path to discussing love and relationships – the ‘healthy self’ path.
As a warm-up, write
self-love = selfish
on the board, and ask students whether they mean the same thing. Have them come up with words that use the prefix self-.
Step 2. Pair up the students and hand out the maze. Explain that the maze is filled with words that use the prefix self-, forming both healthy and unhealthy ‘self paths’. Ask them to follow the ‘healthy self’ path and avoid self-sabotage or other negative words.
The ‘healthy path’ represents a healthy relationship with oneself and follows a logical progression:
self-awareness → self-acceptance → self-respect → self-compassion → self-discipline → self-confidence → self-trust → self-worth → self-love
Check the path with the class. Ask students to find words in the maze that express the opposite of the ‘healthy self’ words, and have them think of useful collocations, for example, verbs that can be used with these nouns or adjectives.
Step 3. Ask students to imagine they are in a ‘relationship’ with themselves and create a 60-second speed-dating introduction in which they describe their relationship. Encourage them to keep it light and humorous.
Students can follow this mini-script:
Hi, I’m in a long-term relationship with myself.
Our relationship status is ________________________ (e.g., waiting for a miracle, it’s complicated, work in progress, strong and stable, unstable, already ordered 37 cats, etc.).
One of our green flags is self-________.
One challenge we’re working on is self-________. We’re breaking up with/ setting boundaries with/ done with/ distancing ourselves from/ no longer tolerating/ reducing/ replacing self-________ with self-________/ recovering from too much self-________.
This year, we’re building/ developing/ strengthening/ committed to improving/ practising/ trying to prioritise/ focusing on self-________.
Wish us luck.
If love is the last thing on your agenda because a) you’re firmly anti-Valentine’s Day or find it a tricky topic to raise with your teen students; b) it’s not in the curriculum – there’s simply no time for love;
c) you have limited resources – no budget for extra worksheets; or for any other d, e, f, g, or h reason, here’s a Valentine’s Day activity that requires zero preparation and zero extra materials – LOVE IS IN…
If you have more resources (time and money) for love, try this Scavenger Hunt activity VALENTINE’S DAY: SCAVENGER HUNT
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