One of the key components of the The International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) that has truly shaped my practice is the use of provocations to spark curiosity and engagement. I’ve come to see provocations not simply as activities, but as intentional invitations to wonder. They are carefully designed experiences, scenarios, or materials that …
Continue reading Hooking Curiosity: Bringing Provocations to Life in PE
I recently came across an Instagram post from three content creators who spend a lot of time calling out health and wellness grifters. You know, the kind who sell “biohacks” wrapped in pseudoscience and braggadocio. I'm talking about the influencers who are a little too close to government decision-makers, and seem to be everywhere right …
Continue reading Why Health Class Might Be the Only Longevity Hack You Need
Whose responsibility is it? This is a common question that comes up when adults are considering how to disseminate information to kids. Whose responsibility is it to teach kids about their sexual health? Whose responsibility is it to teach kids about drugs and alcohol? People will have a variety of opinions. But let's focus on …
Continue reading Infectious Diseases: Why Skills-Based Health Education Matters
Three years ago, our district took a deep dive into Disciplinary Literacy. We had the opportunity to learn from and with renowned disciplinary literacy expert and author ReLeah Lent, who led our professional learning at Brecksville-Broadview Hts. MS. Teachers were divided into three cohorts with a mix of disciplines. As an encore teacher in education, …
Continue reading Ignite Deep Learning in Skills-Based Health Education
When I ask my middle school students to think about what they want to do, be, see and achieve throughout their lives, athletics are often a large part of their goals for the immediate future. But at this age, many tweens and teens also see athletics (especially professional sport and extreme sports) as a career …
Most school courses are content-based, and assessing students’ knowledge through formative assessments is simple: solve the equation, define the vocabulary word, and list the facts. In a Skill-Based Health Education classroom, how do we ensure students are progressing toward the learning target, and what do we do if they are not? The goal of formative …
Continue reading Assessing Students’ Progress in a Skill-Based Health Education Classroom
Perhaps. Many Health Educators promote the benefits of meditation on mental health and share the practice with their students. With resources that offer free subscriptions for educators like Calm, Headspace and Downdog, it is quite easy to engage students in mindfulness during a class. Probably the most interesting benefit of a particular type of meditation, …
Imagine a classroom full of 8th graders knitting. I realize it’s a tough picture to visualize, but it’s a reality in my classroom. Read on for my story of bringing knitting to my 8th grade health classes with a curricular connection and how you can bring your passions to your health classes! My Story - …
As health education becomes the latest target of sections of the community we have seen an increase in the number of attacks on the provision of comprehensive sex education, which somehow also seems to include attacks on SEL practices. As misinformation continues to be spread, it has left educators wondering how they can push back. …
Ask any teacher what their least favorite part of teaching is and the likely answer is “grading.” I know that’s my answer. I hate grading. Hate It! Hate It! Hate It! I used to spend hours writing lengthy comments only to learn that my students couldn’t read cursive handwriting. Then I worked to create specific …
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 …
We all have sex education stories. Even if that education came from friends, family members, movies/tv, songs, or the internet, instead of school. We might have... Puberty stories. First date stories. Coming out stories. The Talk stories. Me too stories. Identity stories. Sex ed stories are universal - they are the stories of our bodies, …
Bringing our standards-based health curriculum to life is important if we want students to make connections between the classroom and the world in which they live. We need to find ways in which students can promote healthy norms and healthy behaviors and we have to provide students with the opportunity to amplify their health-enhancing messages …
Continue reading Breathing Life into Health Skill 8: A Twist on the Traditional Field Day
Well, students, here we are: our new normal. Health class right now certainly looks different than it would be in our pre-pandemic world. I assure you that you are ready to handle this pandemic and whatever else life decides to throw at you over the next few weeks. Why? Because you’ve been focusing on building …
As we are amid this current COVID-19 pandemic, the nation is asking people to change their behavior. It sounds simple, but behavior change is difficult. I recently read an article in the American Journal of Health Education by Robert Bensley who talks about this concept. Changing behavior shouldn’t be difficult because we now know the …
Right now we are all navigating a period in our careers that may be a little scary, slightly uncertain and very different. No one is an expert, which is, in my opinion, the variable that has brought our community of health and physical education teachers even closer together. I can not put into words how …
Amongst the litany of topics that came to mind at the outset of this writing, the lingering question I continuously returned to was, “What professional goal have I set for myself recently?” Skills-based health education brings into focus the adaptability and functionality of knowledge, with which we as educators attempt to pass on to our …
If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard of skills-based health education, you seem intrigued by skills-based health education, but you just don’t know where to start when designing a skills-based health education curriculum. When I was first introduced to skills-based health education, I thought “this seems so fun!”, “my students will love this!”, “I will …
Continue reading The Beginners Guide to Skills-Based Health Education
Cheerleader. Champion. Supporter. Advocate. I want to invite you -- yes, you -- to put one of these words next to your name, like this: “ __________ (your name) is a champion.” Feels good, right? Now imagine if it said “__________ (your name) is a champion for comprehensive sexuality education.” How does that feel? Is …
“Where are my students?”, you wonder, as the bell rings for fifth period. After a call to the office, you realize that you were left off the staff e-mail (again) alerting you to the assembly in the gym during fifth period. Ah, another case of “The Forgotten Health Teacher”. We are “non-essential” in the world …
Continue reading The Renaissance of Health Education in 2020
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