Monday's Health Lesson

Last week when I was getting my back to school hair cut, Kay, my chatty hair dresser said, "Discipline is the key to success in anything you do in life." I immediately thought of what I wanted to teach my health classes this year. A perfect quote to share with middle schoolers, right? I jotted it down in my mind.

Today was the day to introduce the topic of goal setting and healthy habits, so I wrote Kay's quote on the whiteboard.  Instead of writing out the word "discipline" I wrote D_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. The students counted out the number of letters and started guessing.

"Depression?"
"Daring?"
"Dignity?"

Guessing got us nowhere so we played hangman. And when we finally filled in all the letters, this is what I heard:

"Discipline? That's mean!"
"What?"
"You're joking, right?"

So my lesson ended up being a vocabulary lesson on the meaning of the word discipline. They immediately thought punishment, while I was thinking setting goals and sticking to them.

Tomorrow's lesson might have to be paradigm shift.