Health Curriculum Learning Outcomes

Mental Health

Kindergarten – Grade Two

The students will be able to:

  1. Recognize every person should be treated with love and respect because they are a child of God.
  2. Identify they have dignity because they are made in the image and likeness of God.
  3. Explain what is responsible behavior with homework and chores at home.
  4. Identify the various feelings that most people experience.
  5. Describe the physical and emotional reactions to positive and negative feelings, and how we can learn to control and direct our behavior.
  6. Identify how giving into every feeling is harmful.
  7. Identify character traits such as honesty, trustworthiness, patience, self-control, respectfulness, courage, and kindness.
  8. Express the importance of obedience and respect for legitimate authority.
  9. Identify that being selfish hurts themselves and others, and recognize ways of being selfless and self-giving.
  10. Recognize each of us has different talents and abilities from God.
  11. Recognize decisions and choices have consequences.
  12. Identify the importance of forgiveness and explain how forgiveness from God and others brings us peace and joy.
  13. Identify that sinful and unhealthy behavior can be changed.

Grades Three – Five

The students will be able to:

  1. Express their dignity as a child of God and the dignity of all.
  2. Recognize when we know what is good, we are more likely to do what is good.
  3. Recognize the importance of forgiveness.
  4. Express the importance of prayer and that living faith brings happiness.
  5. Identify the connection between a healthy soul, mind, and body.
  6. Explain how people can be positively and negatively influenced by others.
  7. Identify the importance of feelings, knowing it is not wise to base decisions solely or primarily on feelings but on what is morally right.
  8. Describe how the virtues and character traits such as honesty, trustworthiness, self-discipline, respectfulness, and kindness contribute to identity, self-understanding, decision-making, and interpersonal relationships.
  9. Describe how leadership skills can promote teamwork.
  10. Explain and apply a model for decision-making that includes gathering information, predicting outcomes, listing advantages and disadvantages, identifying moral implications, and evaluating decisions.
  11. Recognize we are responsible for the consequences of our decisions.
  12. Describe how our different gifts and talents contribute to society.
  13. Recognize how to foster good habits and overcome bad habits.
  1. Identify the importance of talking with parents about different decisions.
  2. Identify how coping skills (such as perceiving situations as opportunities, taking action / exerting control where possible) positively influence self-concept.
  3. Express that we make mistakes and can learn from them.
  4. Recognize how we can change unhealthy habits.
  5. Explain how sinful behavior hurts self and others, and always leads to unhappiness.
  6. Identify negative peer pressure and how to respond to it.

Grades Six – Eight

The students will be able to:

  1. Recognize doing the will of God leads to happiness.
  2. Identify the capital sins and virtues opposite to them, and how they affect us.
  3. Identify and describe the experience of different feelings and how feelings affect daily functioning.
  4. Describe why feelings should not be the sole basis for actions.
  5. Identify the causes and effects of depression and how to seek help.
  6. Describe the relationships among physical appearance, changes in the body, and self-understanding and esteem.
  7. Identify healthy relationships and how they are strengthened by personal growth in the virtues (in particular chastity) and good habits, and harmed by sinful behavior.
  8. Recognize we can change unhealthy habits, and what virtues to pray for and how to grow in them.
  9. Identify signs of an unhealthy relationship.
  10. Explain one’s responsibility to study, home, work, and relationships.
  11. Describe the benefits of a personal support system to good mental health.
  12. Identify how we are affected by external sources (e.g., entertainment, media, internet, conversations).
  13. Recognize the dangers of drugs, alcohol, materialism, etc.
  14. Differentiate between achievement goals and character goals.
  15. Review the decision making process and explain the value of setting goals as part of the process.
  16. Identify the proper use of time.

Grades Nine – Twelve

The students will be able to:

  1. Explain the relationship between positive mental health and a self-identity rooted in love of God.
  2. Describe the proper formation of conscience and the role of conscience in moral decision-making.
  3. Identify the importance of chaste living with self and others and how it affects relationships.
  1. Analyze healthy ways to express emotions and to cope with feelings, including the common causes of stress, its affects on the body, and managing stress.
  2. Identify factors that help people deal with grief.
  3. Discuss research on health behaviors, brain chemistry, and emotional functioning.
  4. Describe theories of personality development, including formation, and differentiate among the concepts of self-image (perceived by self and others).
  5. Describe the influence of sexuality on identity and self-understanding.
  6. Describe signs of destructive behavior, and identify intervention strategies and kinds of professional intervention.
  7. Identify common mental health disorders and treatments (e.g., psychological, biomedical).
  8. Identify ways in which decision-making is influenced by sound character, faith, family, and personal beliefs.
  9. Explain positive techniques for handling difficult decisions.

Revised 8/20/04