When I saw the Sebastian Yatra/Camilo video for En guerra, I was immediately drawn back to some of my darkest hours as a teen/young adult. I just didn’t love who I was and there was truly a storm raging inside of me. I couldn’t stop listening to this song. I immediately sent it to EVERYONE I knew.
En guerra speaks the truth of so many of our adolescent students and our own children! I knew from the moment I saw the video for the first time that I wanted to use it in class… but when you watch the video, you’ll see why I knew it had to be packaged in just the right unit. I will warn you that you need to evaluate your school setting before deciding to show it. I am holding it back for my Spanish 4 students and I have planned it into a unit on adolescent mental health.
Self-esteem and mental health are such a delicate topic and yet so relevant for the students we see every day. I wanted to honor the message of the song AND let students know that mental health issues are not something to fear or be ashamed of. This is the reality for most of them! In this unit, they’ll explore the song but also some stats about adolescent mental health, a movie talk about Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, and some posed and unposed photo experiments.
(This unit could EASILY be used with a lyric video in place of the official video. The other activities are all 100% universally acceptable.)
I hope that this unit can be the start of opening a discussion about self-image and the importance of keeping lines of communication open with parents and other trusted adults throughout the teen and young adult years!
Thank you for highlighting this video. It is a great platform to lead into discussion in an upper level class with mature students. I look forward to using it! You are correct — it has to be packaged just right and students need to be in a safe place to discuss the many issues and emotions that probably will arise in this discussion. It’s really a beautiful song! Gracias!
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[…] end of the school year, Sebastián Yatra released En guerra. I loved it and have blogged about it here. This is a great example of a song that carries such a heavy meaning, it is better within a unit of […]