Discussion Topics for the Classroom, based on a Therapeutic Lifestyle

Revised Edition: LukivPress (Victoria, BC), 2022.

Previously published as A Therapeutic Lifestyle: Socio-Emotional Discussion Groups (McNaughton Centre [Quesnel, BC], 2012).

Introduction

This program, through class discussions, explores direction and choices that promote good emotional and physical health, based, in part, on William Glasser's Choice Theory; and also highlights the importance of our setting goals (objectives), in particular students' setting academic goals, to give us direction that modifies our behaviour in positive ways, as we try to reach those objectives. Discussions at the students' experiential level encourage them to make responsible choices.

Resources for discussions:

1. Students' goals, opinions, and experiences; and

2. Teacher's knowledge of a) Choice Theory and of b) healthy lifestyles (emotionally and physically).

Students spend the first week (five classes; each class lasts 15 minutes [each morning at McNaughton Centre teachers discuss with their first class of the day socio-emotional concerns]) exploring goals in a variety of contexts (e.g., personal, academic, career). For the next 19 15-minute classes: students each day construct a single class web, based on the discussion topic of the day. Discussions explore foundations for responsible choices that promote good emotional and physical health.

The author

Dan Lukiv, published in 19 countries, is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). As a creative writer, he apprenticed with Canada's Professor Robert Harlow (recipient of the George Woodcock Achievement award for an outstanding literary career), the USA's Paul Bagdon (Spur Award finalist for Best Original Paperback), and England's D. M. Thomas (recipient of the Cheltenham Prize for Literature, Orwell Prize [biography], Los Angeles Fiction Prize, and Cholmondeley award for poetry). He attended The University of British Columbia (creative writing department), the acclaimed Humber School for Writers (poetry writing program), and Writer's Digest University (novel writing program).