Term 2 students embarked on unit of healing reading the short story "Zebra" by Chaim Potok. The story details the journey of a young middle school student known as Zebra, who gets into an accident while jogging. He is injured and no longer able to run anymore. While he is trying to nurse his physical disabilities, he is also faced with not being able to do what he loves by running. Zebra meets John Wilson, a retired and disabled veteran who teaches him how to cope with his injury through art.
Healing is a common theme throughout the story. Students not only detailed their own healing stories, but also did research on the Vietnam War, the war in which John Wilson fought in.
At the end of the unit, students were asked to make a healing box. The healing box would have many items inside it that would help any person who opened it seeking any sort of healing.
The healing box would have:
- a healing drop that has one word on it to invoke calming
- a handmade worry stone to rub
- song lyrics that help in a time of need
- a quote on healing
- a worry doll (according to legend, if you whisper your worries to your worry doll, the worry doll will now worry for you so that you no longer have to)
- 10 affirmations (positive statements about who you are or what you do)
- a trinket of any significance
The healing boxes were a huge success and came out much better than anticipated. These students created the cube out of cardstock paper using a template. Some were able to paint their boxes with acrylic paint and use magazine cut outs to decorate the top.
Here are some worry stones that students created:
Examples of Worry dolls:
And some trinkets:
And of course, the final healing boxes:
