I am inspired to write this post by an article in my local newspaper [O'Leary, Cathy, "Wait to lose weight gets longer for kids", The West Australian, 10 July 2017, p7]. Following are two key quotes from this article:
"Overweight children are going on waiting lists to join a government -funded program that helps them shed weight, get fit and eat more vegetables."
"....most children who took part changed their body shape and reduced their waistlines, resulting in them not only being healthier and fitter but also gaining in self confidence."
This is a Western Australian state government Health Department program. It is not about dieting and involves the whole family.
What now follows is an extract from a small book I am writing on School Effectiveness. It is my Criterion #2 of School Effectiveness. Tom is the narrator and SDP refers to a School Development Plan the elements of which have embedded within them my School Effectiveness Criteria. The Leopards are that set of students within the normal school stream that struggle within an academic year to complete the learning for the year level commensurate with their age cohort as prescribed in the curriculum being used (My book is based on the Australian National Curriculum [ANC] ) If there are readers of my blog from the USA read primary/elementary school and secondary/high school.
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Criterion #2 My School Helps Me To Be Fit And Healthy And
To Feel Good
About Myself (Aligns with SDP element #10)
Tom was convinced that what the school did in nurturing the
physical and social growth of its students was vital. The curriculum learning areas of physical
and health education and the performing arts provided considerable
opportunities to achieve such nurturing.
This is not to decry the value of the arts of drawing and design but Tom
believed these to be more specialised and dependent in the areas of painting
and drawing on innate talent. He had
taken some criticism over the years for this view and felt somewhat
hypocritical when he admired a painting or a sculpture.
Tom had observed during his time working in schools the
swelling of pride and joy of students who had just been part of a school play
or performance. He well remembered the primary school that each year put on a
major performance for the parents and the wider community and the large number of students who were
involved. He saw the beaming on their
faces when the audience cheered and clapped their performance. He marvelled at the annual School Spectacular
screened each year by the ABC network and could see the efforts and extensive
student involvement numbers within each contributing school. He knew of Leopards who just blossomed as
performers with a great boost to their self esteem. Here was a curriculum area made for
developing a sense in students that they were respected within their school
community.
Tom dreamed of a vision in physical and health education
whereby innovative physical education teachers established programs based on
general physical fitness leading to good health for each student. He was sure such programs were out
there. He visualised at primary school
level daily physical education aimed at improving general fitness taking into
account the physical attributes of each student. As soon as possible in primary school and
leading into secondary school, each student would be skilled to participate in
regularly measuring and documenting (a mathematics and computer data management
opportunity) their height, weight, core, arm and leg strength and aerobic
fitness. They would be shown how to
calculate the optimum weight for height for themselves. All of this was to be handled very carefully
so as not to embarrass anyone. The
fitness programs would be interesting and varied and take into account the sort
of impact exercises that might be suited to girls as a hedge against the later
scourge of osteoporosis.
The personal fitness data bases designed to be built up over
the student’s whole school life were to be secure and known only to the
teacher(s) and the individual student.
At secondary school level this whole program could become very
sophisticated and extend to developing attitudes of preventative measures/medicine
to ensure good health rather than the reach for a tablet approach.
Part of the learning was about a healthy diet. A caution was the area of obesity and how to
assist such students without creating conflict with the family. An ideal would be to involve the family if this
were possible. All parents would be
briefed through various school communication channels about this program. The
sensitive area of the school’s dietary recommendations would need to be handled
with care so as not to offend families.
Tom knew that some schools would not go for this but he was stubborn in
his resolve. He did not want parents to
be told what to do but wanted to be up front about how the school’s Physical
and Health Education program dealt with dietary issues and physical good
health. Tom knew that there was nothing
new in schools teaching about a healthy diet.
The five food groups had received a regular hammering over the years and
parents were used to this occurring. This program was also to embrace the
issues of body abuse such as drugs of all sorts.
It would also cover sex education according to the developmental
needs of the students and facets about relating to other persons at a sexual
level. Built in here would be warnings
about being trapped into abusive situations, especially the dangers that lurked
on the internet. At its very best it
could also include education on gender matters such as homosexuality. Overall the program was to be about
developing a positive self- image in each student by giving them the chance to
explore these matters openly and positively.
There would need to be a seeking of parental permission in respect of
many of the areas that might be covered.
The health and fitness program coordinators would also be
responsible for ascertaining the level of bullying across the student
population and for developing programs to counter this negative activity. The physical education staff would have an added
responsibility to educate the rest of the staff so that they could support the
bullying counter measures.
Thus for Tom a measure of the effectiveness of any school
was to create and measure the success of such self-image developing
programs. It was a big responsibility
for the physical education teachers.
They might need to coopt other relevant staff members such as the
counselling staff. Of course the
physical education staff would have responsibility for sport and student
participation in such could be part of their data gathering as to how this
assists them as developing individuals. Above all there would be no students
fearing that their slowness or their general physical prowess would see them
floundering at the tail of the field in any sporting event. It would be about
personal fitness goals.
Above all it was to create an environment where the young
felt safe and cared for as they learned more in their journey towards being
able to look after themselves as adults who had a positive self-image and sense
of who they were. This meant that the
young had a sense each day that all was well emotionally and physically and
that they had some control over this. Tom knew that part of feeling comfortable
at school had to do with performances of various sorts from academic to
physical and artistic, but more about that later.
Tom had observed effective teachers over the years making
sure they interacted positively with each student each week. Of particular concern to a teacher were the
quiet students. Some Leopards often
worked hard at being inconspicuous because they found the learning tough
going. They may even have experienced
what they perceived as a snub in the hurly burly of the classroom. Tom well remembered a year 12 Leopard telling
him how way back in year 4 he asked a question and received what he perceived
as ridicule from some of his classmates.
This compounded his dwindling confidence in his ability to learn and he
told Tom that from that day he had deliberately remained as quiet as he could
and that he never asked another question. As a precaution Tom included in his
thinking the next criterion of an effective school.
**************
It will be obvious to any reader of this blog why I was excited to read the newspaper article of 10 July 2017.
Primary/elementary schools may not have specialist physical education teachers and there would need to be a team staff effort to achieve some of what Tom advocated.
Tom's plan and that of the WA Health Department is about good health, positive self image and also preventative medicine that will save billions in health care costs over a decade.
I have always been one to defend schools from being the answer to a plethora of the community's issues but do not resile from this emphasis on the role of Physical Education as advocated by Tom.
Tom may seem to have been a bit soft about competitive sport but this is not the case. For Tom it is very important but is not to be the main focus of Physical Education. Tom as an Australian educator knows full well what a sport orientated society we have in Australia.
May the Force be with hard working school principals as they build student wellbeing!
GD
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