Recently, my family and I were watching the new Disney + show Limitless. The miniseries features Chris Hemsworth and a variety of experts as they discuss elements to living a long life, including fasting, strength-training, and battling stress. The first episode discusses stress, and so far I’ve found it the most powerful. We watched Hemsworth use virtual reality and mindful breathing to prepare for a walk along a crane jutting out from a skyscraper.
Not long after watching this episode, I was handing back our first full timed essays in my AP Lit class. Before I could praise my students for their scores (which were excellent), they filled the room with a sound we are all familiar with: the sound of catastrophizing.
“This is the worst thing I ever wrote.”
“I don’t even want to see mine. It’s trash.”
“I failed. I just know it.”
I was about to pass out the essays, then stopped. I decided to do our rehash first, before students saw their scores.
After the rehash, I finally passed back the essays. I allowed my students a chance to look over their scores and compare with a neighbor, then made a connection to the show I had previously watched in my family.
You’re not going to drown
In one of the most memorable parts of the Stress episode of Limitless, Chris Hemsworth took a drown-proof test with military special forces. You can watch how this test goes in this clip, available on YouTube.
As you can see, Hemsworth fails each test. In the clip, he says, “I know I have enough oxygen. And I know these guys aren’t going to let me drown. But I can feel my heartbeat racing and stress rising.”
When he fails, he talks through the exercise with the stress expert for the show. She asks him to practice positive self-talk to get through the stressful experience. Then, they push him back in the pool again.
I haven’t been able to find this clip on YouTube anywhere, but if you have Disney +, the entire portion runs from 12:50-20:50. If you don’t have Disney + account, I’ll summarize how it ends.
When Chris Hemsworth is put back in the water, he struggles again as he did the first time. But then he begins practicing the prescribed positive self talk. He says, “I can do this. I have enough oxygen. I’m not going to drown. I’m not going to drown.”
After this, Hemsworth passes each test. He even does a bonus test at the end that goes beyond the drown-proof exercise. When he’s finished, he explains that he didn’t fail the first test because of a lack of oxygen, but because of stress. Once he practiced positive self-talk, the stress stopped holding him back, and he was able to focus on his exercise and succeed.
Application
When I passed out the essays to my students, I talked through this moment with my students (if I had been prepared to talk about it, I would have had the eight-minute clip queued up to show them).
Together, we reviewed some of the things that we had done to prepare for our essays, just as Hemsworth had prepared for his drown-proofing exercise.
- All my students have taken (or are taking) AP English Language, so they’ve already practiced writing on-demand.
- We spent three months practicing strong paragraph practice.
- Each of my students is intelligent, capable, and worthy of being in AP Lit.
One last thing I reminded them is that I have a policy in my class that no student who spends a full class period writing an on-demand essay should fail. If a student works hard, puts in the time, and attempted a strong response, I will not fail them. Therefore, they have nothing to fear. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO DROWN.
While this moment was meant to empower my kids, it grounded them a bit as well. While catastrophizing may make us seem humble and prepare for the worst, it can also have damaging effects on our mindset. I told them that from now on, my classroom was a growth mindset environment.
I’d love to hear some other exercises you use to build positive talk and growth mindsets in your classroom. Please share in the comments!
