Course Spotlight: Wellness & Creative Practice

As part of our Course Selection: Wellness II resources, the Board of SASS brings to you an in-depth overview of Wellness II: Wellness & Creative Practice (OHSWPH) from the words of the course instructors!

What common goals do your Wellness II students share and strive towards through this course? How do students fulfill these goals and what skills will they gain? 

Kalée Tock: Students share their triumphs and setbacks expressing themselves creatively, and support each other in achieving their creative goals.  Those goals can differ, often dramatically so, from student to student.

Lisa Hicks:  The common goal is exploring at least one creative practice; how that goal gets fulfilled differs a lot from student to student since their practices are quite diverse.  

What makes your Wellness II course unique from the other offerings? 

Kalée Tock: Students often develop an appreciation for the ways in which activities they already find fun and satisfying can be made more fun and satisfying.

Lisa Hicks:  ^ That’s a great point, and I hope it’s happening in my section as well!  In addition, I get a sense that this strand is the most open-ended and the one that varies the most widely from semester to semester; after about Week 5, the content is entirely student-generated, so, if a student ends up taking the strand twice, they’ll see very different content the second time through.

What is one significant activity students do in a weekly meeting that attests to the goals of the course? 

Kalée Tock: Each student does a workshop or presentation in which they share their creative practice with the group.

Lisa Hicks:  Same as above!

What does workload or assignments in your course entail? 

Kalée Tock: As is common to all the Wellness I and II courses, students have to fill out a monthly P.E. log.  We make a few minutes of time to fill that out during each weekly class meeting.  Other than individually exercising and preparing one workshop or presentation, there is no out-of-class work.  

Lisa Hicks:  Same as above!

What motivates you, as the instructor, to create and/or lead this course?  

Kalée Tock: I enjoy expressing myself creatively, reflecting on my creative expression, and learning about ways that students find creative fulfillment.

Lisa Hicks:  STORYTIME!  I developed this class after taking over a separate strand.  The original strand was developed by somebody who was really into it; it was absolutely Her Thing.  When she left OHS, I inherited her syllabus, and it was … fine.  Fine-to-good, even!  But it was not My Thing.  So, over Winter Break that year, I thought, “What is My Thing?”  And I had a bolt from the blue:  Wellness and Creative Practice is My Thing!  I dabble in several practices on my own, and I love hearing about other people’s creative practices.  The student presentations have been the heart of this class from the start, and it just wouldn’t work without them; they’re always both my favorite part and the students’ favorite part.  

Is there anything else you would like potential Wellness II students to know? 

Kalée Tock: I think that covers it!  🙂

Lisa Hicks:  You do not have to be “good” at a creative practice to thrive in this class.  Enthusiastic participation is all you need.