“I didn’t have the best upbringing, but I didn’t have the worst.” This blog post reflects (either verbatim or in spirit) conversations I have with my students from time to time. The sharing that occurs in my health room is cyclical and reciprocated. Like most of you, I share (appropriate) stories that help to create …
Threshold concepts at Rototuna Senior High (RSHS) have become integral in our course design, we are a senior school with years 11-13 only. The idea of threshold concepts has helped move students (and teachers!) away from course design that is solely focussed on assessment. Not that assessment is a bad word, it is important, however …
Continue reading Creating Unicorns and ‘AHA’ Moments in Health and Physical Education (HPE)
Too often, a young person’s experience of school-based health education is left to chance. By chance, is the young person living in a country in which health education is visible in the national (or regional/territorial) curriculum policy? By chance, does the young person happen to attend a school in which the subject is valued, and …
In #HealthEd three things guide your content. There is content that you legally MUST teach (state-mandated), there is the content that you LOVE to teach (those classic lessons that you enjoy) and, sandwiched in between those two is the content that your students NEED. That particular content is guided by data and reflects the behaviors …
Continue reading In Support of Comprehensive Sexuality Education.
Step after step after step, the last 10 kilometers of a half marathon is always the toughest, especially when the half marathon comes after a 1.9km Swim and a 90-kilometer cycle! Your body is telling you, ‘Just walk Andy, it’s ok, no one will know. We will feel much better if you just walked’. Your …
Many of us have seen school gardens promoted by teachers, non-profit organizations and community groups but are those spaces ever really used effectively and do they focus on providing a student-centered space dedicated to promoting student voices and democratic socialism? Do school gardens ever really play an integral role in combating food deserts and other …
Continue reading Growing Democratic Socialism Through School Gardens
As a resident of Los Angeles County, I’ve been teaching on Zoom for over a year. At first, “do no harm” was the only requirement and we only expected to be out for two weeks. We are currently still remote teaching and everything that I’ve built up in my 20 year career was all thrown …
Let’s Change the Stigma!I think assessments have gotten a bad rap. We need to change how we think about the purpose of our assessments. They are not just a grade to be entered in the gradebook, but instead they are to monitor student progress, allow for student and teacher reflection, differentiated to meet the needs …
I recently completed my Master’s degree in Education for Sustainability - an area of education I didn’t even know existed until I found myself in it! I am passionate about better preparing our students to be active citizens who will not shy away from global issues but instead have the skills and attitudes needed to …
It was early on in my career and I had just taught a class on consent. Most of the group had left, but one girl hung back. I asked her if she needed anything, and what soon came out was that the year before, after having a few drinks at a party, an older boy …
Continue reading Talking About Sexual Violence? Strive for a Trauma-Informed Lens
In our comfort zone we feel exactly that, comfort. However, when we step outside of our comfort zone, that is where we experience growth and reward. We frequently encourage our students to take a step (or even a leap), but when do we do so ourselves? I recently left a permanent teaching position and moved …
In a recent assignment, my students identified the benefits of comprehensive sexuality education, and their research discovered this quote from Siecus, prompting us to have a conversation about the role of language in the #HealthEd classroom, how it has changed, and how it can make a classroom more inclusive. I asked my students to consider …
It may seem hard to believe that our clitoris is designed solely for pleasure. With 8,000 nerve endings, we DOUBLE the penis, which only weighs in at a whopping 4,000. One may argue that vulva owners are as deserving or more deserving of an orgasm than penis owners. That’s one hard pill for society to …
Continue reading The Oldest Fable – Everything Wrong with the Clitoris Narrative
“What do I want my life to feel like on a daily basis and how do I get there?” I was asked this very question several years ago while attending a women’s yoga retreat in the Berkshires. It was the midway part of the weekend; we all had our journals in hand and were given …
https://soundcloud.com/james-robert-brook/health-advocacy-committee This microblog post was a featured post in #slowchathealth’s #microblogmonth event. You can search for all of the featured posts here. Please do follow each of the outstanding contributors on social media (including James Brook, the author of this post) and consider writing a microblog post of your own to be shared with the global audience of slowchathealth.com …
I was a 35-year-old, single dad thinking ‘what do I do next’. I had been a Myotherapist for 25 years, a practitioner and educator, became a Level 2 DDPYoga instructor (www.DDPY.com), but I needed more. I love teaching, health, and creating games, so I said to my child, “I am going back to school to …
Continue reading Bringing the Glitz & Glam Back in Physical Education
In part one of this blog post, I discussed the importance of aligning the purpose of the physical education class to helping students form deep connections with their physical activity. Part two will discuss a system (ROAD) that a teacher can use to facilitate this process for students in PE Record The first step in …
Continue reading How to Facilitate Deeper Connections to Physical Activity
Part 1: Aligning to a Social Emotional Lens in Physical Education According to Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, a clearly defined purpose is at the heart of all goal-setting and system-building, and as a teacher the communication of this purpose to students and parents sets a clear expectation for how and what they will learn in …
Continue reading Aligning to a Social Emotional Lens in Physical Education
Running an organization that prioritizes self-care requires a lot. It means walking the walk, talking the talk, and not just posting how others should take care of themselves, but modeling our values in our own actions. Now if I'm being real, to be a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur, and an educator all in one …
The recent outcry over the NCAA’s unequal treatment of the men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments did not surprise me in one bit. Female athletes grow up knowing that despite equal amounts of hard work and dedication to their sports, the worth of their performance or level of respect they receive is far less than …
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