Health Curriculum Part I
Physical Education is an integral part of the overall education program for every student. It provides an opportunity to all students to develop the skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to lead a physically active lifestyle. Numerous National associations including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Association for Sport and PE, American Heart Association, and Healthy People 2010, recommend daily Physical Education for all students. The Healthy People 2010 curriculum offers a broader range of physical education. It changed the focus of physical education from the predominance of sports to opportunities which ensure that physical activity and fitness become part of regular healthy behavioral patterns. The Healthy People 2010 curriculum stresses to students that any type or amount of physical activity in leisure time can provide important health benefits, compared to a sedentary lifestyle.
Context
In 1953 Bonnie Prudden and Hans Kraus published “Muscular Fitness and Health” in the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. This article alerted people that slowly Americans were becoming “soft”. Kraus conducted a study of students in the United States and Europe. This study included different physical activities like leg lifts, sit-ups, trunk lifts and toe touches. In this study, Kraus found that over fifty-six percent of American students failed at list one fitness test compared to only eight percent of European students. These results were related to the dramatically different European and American lifestyles. Europeans relied less upon automotive transportation than Americans. They were more likely to walk and ride their bikes as a main means of transportation. In America there was a growing trend to suburban living. With the expansion of cities outward it meant the creation of small sub-communities that required little to no reason to venture outside the “neighborhood”. Materialistic ideals were overcoming American society. Most families owned a car and a television, which played a key role in the unhealthy lifestyle of the American public. Most children were used to having a ride to school, church, and any other activity. They also started to watch television more than they spent on any other activity. Mass production of different products was overwhelming the American society. There was an abundance of food, cars, machines, housing, and whatever else made our lives easier and more enjoyable. There was no longer a need for hard labor life was all about how much people could acquire and how easily we could do it. The American population no longer held themselves or the children to a high physical standard. (“The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports”. May 17, 2008. www.fitness.gov/home_about.htm.)
The state of the United States military also played a role in focusing attention on the physical wellbeing of the nation. As a former military leader, President Eisenhower was aware that almost half of the men that reported for duty in the armed forces were seen as physically unfit. With the growing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, the President believed the United States needed to create a physically fit military and improve the physical wellbeing of this country. President Eisenhower allowed Kraus to report the findings to numerous different audiences that included government officials and educators. . In 1956 Eisenhower, established the President’s Council on Youth Fitness to motivate and encourage all Americans to live active healthy lifestyles. The problem with the council is that it could not force any schools to implement their programs; the council could only encourage schools to do so.
When President Kennedy came into office, he had the council create a curriculum that focused on living an active healthy lifestyle. Free publications were given out to help encourage both students and educators to take a serious look at how to create a healthy lifestyle and to carry those tools into adulthood. With all the encouragement and information given there was still no improvement in the testing that was done in various studies. This would be the reoccurring theme for the next two decades. There were different fitness tests and awards that tried to promote physical activity among students, but again it was not required, only encouraged. (“The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports”. May 17, 2008. www.fitness.gov/home_about.htm.)
Other programs were also formed during this time to help promote healthy lifestyles through the YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, Boy Scouts, Girl Scout and many others. These programs aided the education of creating a healthy lifestyle but without the adequate funding they could only do so much. The United States wanted to develop these programs, but the problem was who was going to pay for it. There was a gap between what was said about the responsibility for health education and what was actually done about it. As in most issues in education there was a gap between the rich and poor in creating healthy lifestyles among all students.
Part II Orientation/Values
With the implementation of Healthy People 2010, schools hope to create a system in which all students can develop a healthy life. This curriculum has taken a progressive approach. In the past the curriculum has been influenced on many different levels. The idea of teaching our students about how to live a healthy life had to coincide with our society’s values, beliefs, and morals. Health and physical education curriculum was allowed in the schools as long as it didn’t promote any behaviors that was seen as inappropriate. Health and physical education was supposed to teach students how to be good moral citizens that not to talk about the problems they might face in life. With the recent changes in our society, educators have chosen to take a more progressive role when it comes to health education. The curriculum is a more diverse, comprehensive version of the material. With the changes in the curriculum the methods of instruction had to be changed. Using the progressive theories the teacher can present the information and then turn the learning over to the students. The students will take the information and put it to real life use. Every student is different and needs different things out of their health education. This approach puts the power in the hands of the students and allows them to discover what will benefit them as an individual and what life changes they will need to make in the present and the future to help them grow and develop. (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Healthy People 2010”. May 14, 2008. http://www.healthypeople.gov.)
Purpose/Content
The purpose of Healthy People 2010 is to help eliminate health disparities among the different segments of the population. This curriculum takes into account that everyone is different and everyone must understand his or her own body and background in order to create a program that will benefit the individual. The physical education curriculum was developed to make sure that students are presented with many different options in physical fitness. When creating this curriculum Secretary's Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention were aware that physical fitness was not a high priority of most students. The goal of this curriculum was to inform students of why being physically active and eating right would benefit them. If students are able to create a physical program that best fits their needs they are more likely to have results that will lead them to a healthy lifestyle.
The content of this curriculum was designed to effect both Health Education and Physical Education. Most of the content if this material coincides with both subject matters. An example is the education about heart disease. Many different areas are covered from the Health Education such as what causes heart disease? Information about diet, genetics, and exercise are presented to the students to first educate them why they might want to change their lifestyles now as opposed to when they get older. The Physical Education side provides physical activities that can be used to reduce the cause of heart disease. It is the actual doing on an activity that is meant to benefit all the students. (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Healthy People 2010”. May 24, 2008. http://www.healthypeople.gov.)
The developers of the Healthy People Curriculum knew that physical activity was not the only aspect of life that needed to improve. They also implemented education on tobacco use, substance abuse, responsible sexual behavior, mental health, injury/violence, environmental quality, immunizations and access to health care. Instead of ignoring these issues the curriculum focuses on prevention. Healthy People 2010 realized the importance of content of this curriculum. With the growing tends of pregnancy, drug use, injury and violence there was a need to educate our youth in how to deal with the different situations that they might encounter in their young lives. The curriculum is a comprehensive program that is sequential in learning experiences in preschool, kindergarten, into grade school, middle school, and high school. It is organized with the needs, interests, maturation, and knowledge of the grade level of the students. The developers designed the curriculum to progress as the student’s levels of needs and maturation progressed. This comprehensive curriculum is designed to present students at an early age of the basic concepts of living a healthy life and moving more in depth as the grade level increases.
Implementation
When trying to implement this curriculum into the schools many changes had to be made. The most important issue that schools focused on was making sure the teachers received the necessary training to handle the information. The teacher will play a key role in ensuring that the students receive the proper guidance and are comfortable with the sometimes uncomfortable subject matter. The teachers also need to be up to date with the ever changing society and the challenges that the students will encounter on their way to a healthy lifestyle. The curriculum also focuses on increasing parental involvement in all aspects of the subject matter. There are many different areas that are covered in this curriculum and the parents must be aware of the topics that are discussed. Another goal for implementation was making health education and physical education a core academic subject. Mandating adequate instruction time that students would receive.