This chapter discusses safe and healthy environments for children to learn in. Providing a safe and comfortable atmosphere for students helps them to feel as though they belong and takes some stress off them and allows them to be ready to learn. The chapter mentions that for some students this may be the only place they have to feel safe as their home (neighborhood or actual home) may not be the safest place for them. The types of risky behaviors that middle school students may engage in is discussed as well.This chapter also refers to classroom management, discipline and physical activity. It gave examples of support structures for students too these included, student support teams and peer mediation. Physical activity is an aspect of health that is changing in our schools; there is an emphasis on keeping kids active for a lifetime and giving them the skills to accomplish this. One way we are doing this is to use a CSHP (comprehensive school health program). The chapter brings all of these aspects together nicely and shows you how to organize and utilize the programs and information given.
The class liked this chapter overall; one aspect that was mentioned several times was the physical activity aspect. The class was interested in keeping kids active and the obesity rate. They also liked the ideas of incorporating different types of physical activity. Another aspect that caught the classes’ attention was the classroom management and discipline piece. Most of us seemed to take different ideas and information from this section. Keeping the school an inviting place where students feel comfortable was the overall consensus of the class, as well as keeping the students active and engaged in learning.
13 comments:
I really like your blog. The classroom management link seems to be very helpful and I can't wait to take a closer look later on.
One thing I liked was the health model, because I don't think we view health holistically often enough. We tend to just look at one piece of the problem. Often times things like counseling and a healthy school environment take a back seat these days to things like nutrition (which is important but may be overstressed).
I remember reading this chapter, and thinking specifically about the aspect of physical education that helped to create a healthy environment. I agree with this whole heartedly. I think that all aspects of physical activity help to benefit all students. It allows them an outlet for all the pent up energy. I think that the healthy safe environment is essential to help with effective learning.
I thought this blog was really well done and very informative. I loved the link to the Maine study about risky behaviors that students engaged in. The fact that it specifically was about Maine makes it a really good resource. I also liked the obesity link. It was a real eye opener watching the rates rise throughout the years. I would also use the physical activity link because of its various subsequent links within the site.
Wow! You have put a lot of great resources in your blog! I really liked all of them, I can't really seem to pick just one to talk about. I loved all of them. Great job! I am going back to these to read all of them thoroughly later.
Great PDF. HOW DO WE SAVE THE WORLD? We show people things like this. I think the obesity link is a great thing to include. I mean, the way we are headed we have so many obese people and that is a health risk. I was watching the news a while ago, and they were saying that insurance companies are charging higher copays and rates for obese individuals due to the complications that can arise. It is important that we teach students how to be healthy and provide them with the resources for exercise and to make the right choices. HEY, that goes back to the boys and girls learning differently. I mean, the whole mandatory sports thing is a way to make sure that all students are taking part in some sort of physical activity. I mean, part of that is also educating the parents. But then again it all goes back to the whole building a healthy environment and creating a school of wellness.
The risky behavior PDF you found was really a wake up call, even though I was apparently part of the data. Both teachers and parents need to be involved and talk about these things with students. Another shock was the obesity rate map you found. Obesity is a growing problem (no pun intended) and more health services need to be provided and physical education and activities need to be stressed more. Nice links.
I am taking Teaching Health and we have discussed the Coordinated School Health Program model in class. I think this is sooo important! Connecting to the obesity site, we discuss in class that we are a reactive society and not a proactive society. We need to be educating our students on being healthier, active students.
The PDF data file that you found from the Maine School Survey, surprised me in some aspects. I actually thought that the numbers would be higher than what it was. The last chart waas what really interested me because it showed how many students DID drink/smoke/have sex... The numbers of how many have drank was higher than what I would have liked to see and also having sex during middle school. When I first saw that a middle school in Southern Maine wanted to start providing birth control for their students. At first I couldn't believe but now seeing what the level of students experimenting with intercourse is, it kind of makes me see why they decided to start the birth control push.
P.S your other links are great. I del.ic.ious"ed" all of the them.
Even though the obesity link was very alarming, it was my favorite because of that fact. Teachers really need to model good health for their students so we can stop the trend of obesity in the United States. I think that's the only way we can get people to change. Nice job on the links!
I think that the risky behavior link is really good to have access to because it is a good reference to know the problems facing our students. These numbers used to shock me until I took a drug and alcohol class last semester and saw these same numbers. It is hard to think that your kid or student is participating in these activities. I think that the CSHP is a great thing to keep in mind because you need to have all 8 in order to be successful. This link also gives us a lot of ideas on how to incorporate these 8 components. The map was really cool to watch. I never really realized how obese our country is. I hear about it all the time, but it was amazing it change throughout the years. I think that the school wellness idea is great. This link shows teachers how to create one so nobody has an excuse to not create a wellness plan. The classroom management page is a good resource because it has a lot of links that could be helpful to us.
I truly think you found some great links. The pdf link has some really great data and I am really interested in seeing what the 2008 data would say. To quote Dr. Grace, your link on Coordinated School Health Programs is very powerful as well as your obesity link. I think school health programs including all eight components they suggested should be incorporated in every middle school! Great links!
I'm so glad that you took this chapter serious and found the great articles that you did. this is obviously what I'm very passionate about, and its frustrating when other educators do not realize the importance of health education. I hope that these articles had some kind of impact on everyone so they can recognize the importance of modeling and integrating some health into their classes.
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