Based on this analysis, can we truly say that we are guiding students to learn about their health and social development based on their interests, needs and abilities, OR, are we designing instructional programs to teach specific, predetermined content to all students based on a factory style approach?
Education, Not Training (even in health or social skills) Builds Character, Leads to Development6/10/2014 (From the ISHN Member information service) ISHN and ASCD have been sponsoring an international dialogue on how health 7 social programs can be integrated within education systems. One aspect of that suggests that H&S advocates should support a broad, liberal and student-centered approach to learning as outlined in the ASCD Whole Child approach. However, should we also be asking H&S advocates if they are actually doing that in their various instructional programs that seek to teach specific knowledge and skills about particular health or social topics? A recent blog underlines this question when it describes the difference between education and training (or education based on outdated factory models). The blog article, appearing in the Smart Blog on Education (Jun 9, 2014) suggests that " Our traditional approach to schools was based on a factory model where workers had to be “trained” to perform actions and repeat them in the same way and at the same time. Anything that distracted them from performing the way the factory prescribed was just a distraction to be extinguished as quickly as possible. A person’s natural interests, including the desire to socially connect to others, needed to be put aside in favor of the required work. Workers needed to be “trained” in a way of acting that was foreign to how they were naturally wired to learn. Since the work they did was arbitrary, relatively meaningless and tedious, they needed to be rewarded for performing in a certain way and penalized for performing in a different way." "In this factory model of schools, character and social/emotional skills are not integrated into the interactions between teachers and students. There is one main social skill: Do what you are told. Policymakers recognizing that schools are missing this social/character element decided to have character education and social emotional skill training inserted into the traditional structure of schools." "The environment and structure of a school sends a message to students that very often contradicts the content of many social emotional and character education programs. In addition, when the basic structure of schools does not change, neither do the attitudes of many teachers. It’s not surprising that many of them view these programs just as add-ons or distractions from teaching academic content. ".Instead of training students, schools should be educating them. Education comes from the Latin words e and ducere–meaning to lead out of. Education therefore is not about creating skills and abilities in people who are blank slates waiting to be shaped and molded. Education assumes that people come ready to learn with special abilities, capacities, interests and affinities, and need guidance and support from human relationships for their unique human qualities to come out."
Based on this analysis, can we truly say that we are guiding students to learn about their health and social development based on their interests, needs and abilities, OR, are we designing instructional programs to teach specific, predetermined content to all students based on a factory style approach?
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(From Politico) First lady Michelle Obama and school lunch ladies used to be on the same team, but now they’re locked in a political war against each other. For the first three years of Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, the School Nutrition Association, a powerful group that represents 55,000 cafeteria professionals, was a close ally in the White House push to get kids to eat healthier. Fast-forward to today: SNA is standing shoulder to shoulder with House Republicans, pushing to grant schools waivers from the requirements if they are losing money and aiming to relax the standards when the law is reauthorized next year. The story behind the school lunch flip-flop is a complicated web of lobbying change-ups, industry influence and partisan posturing inside the Beltway. It also casts a spotlight on how difficult it is to make the economics of school meals work — and just how much resistance there can be to Washington directing nationwide change. Read more
(From the ISHN Member information service) A May 2014 report on the preparation of Canadian teachers to promote mental health in their initial teacher education or pre-service university programs found a number of gaps. The researchers noted that (1) only two courses among the 50+ education faculties across all provinces and territories met all four criteria for a mental health literacy course for teacher candidates, (2) many courses took reactive approaches to a minority of students in need when considering mental health—dealing with students already in emotional crisis, students demonstrating behavioural challenges, or students at risk of school failure because of emotional difficulties. In contrast, physical “health” courses tended to take a proactive or protective approach for all students, helping all students develop healthy eating habits and teaching students to enjoy regular physical exercise. (3) Though some programs opted to conceptualize this area as “mental health” and “psychological health” or “psychological well-being” , many programs broadened their conceptualizations to “holistic health”, “whole child health”, and “comprehensive health and wellness” as reflected through course offerings. These differences are not only linguistic but also indicative of dynamic changes in the field. We found that while some courses referenced specific mental health challenges—such as stress, anxiety, depression, anorexia etc.—others, in contrast, focused on the cultivation of qualities or skills, such as empathy, hope, sustainable happiness, appreciation, and positive relationships. Thus, in order to design and offer more classes to our country’s B.Ed. students, we need to understand and come to a common conceptualization of what exactly comprises mental health and well-being." Read more>>
From the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #1, 2014 of Physical and Health Education Academic journal review the socialization of PE teachers. The authors note that "Teacher socialization is a term used to describe the socializing processes that influence a teacher’s beliefs, assumptions, and values regarding teaching. The nature, quality and effectiveness of teaching is greatly influenced by a teacher’s early socializing experiences. Using Lortie’s (1975) theoretical framework, Lawson (1983a) identified three main kinds of socialization that teachers face: (a) Acculturation: this includes actions, beliefs, and value systems that are learned from birth and foster ideologies about, in this case, professional conduct. (b) Professional socialization: this is the process through which prospective and practicing teachers learn and maintain the values deemed ideal for teaching physical education. Professional socialization is strongly influenced by recruits’ experiences as a K-12 school student (the period of time described by Lortie (1975) as the apprenticeship of observation). These experiences inform recruits’ subjective warrant, which consists of their beliefs about the requirements for being a physical education teacher. (c) Organizational socialization: this process serves to maintain the “traditional skills” valued by institutions and organizations. Organizational socialization may work against change in order to uphold traditions and routines." The review (full text available free) concludes that "there have been several patterns to emerge in socialization research since 2000, most notably in the increasingly progressive, “teaching-oriented” views that many physical education recruits now hold. In particular, the findings suggest that teaching orientations are now more prevalent in recruits than they were prior to 2000. Attached to this finding is a general pattern that physical education teachers today are more likely now than in the past to develop a student-centered holistic approach to teaching physical education that develops the “whole-student”, one who is socially responsible and aware. While there appears to be less evidence supporting the presence of coaching orientations in recruits which is likely due to a change in the modern recruit’s acculturation, we feel that this finding should be treated with caution, as it does not suggest that coaching orientations are “things of the past” or are no longer present in physical education. There are still many recruits who do come to physical education with the aim of becoming coaches and the sport-centred philosophies to physical education content and pedagogy that tend to come with this mindset. Read more>>
From the ISHN Member information service) Walking and biking to school (active transportation or routes to school) have been shown to provide the most efficient means for increasing physical activity in the school day but only a minority of parents allow or encourage their children to do so. An analysis of the dataset from the National Evaluation of Walk to School (WTS) Project, which includes data from 4th and 5th grade children and their parents from 18 schools across the US, is reported in the May 2014 issue of the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity. The researchers report that "Measures included monthly child report of mode of school travel during the previous week (n = 10,809) and perceived barriers and social norms around active school travel by parents (n = 1,007) and children (n = 1,219). Generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) with log-link functions were used to assess bivariate and multivariate associations between hypothesized correlates and frequency of active school travel, assuming random school effect and controlling for the distance to school. The final model showed that the most relevant significant predictors of active school travel were parent’s perceived barriers, specifically child resistance (Estimate = −0.438, p < 0.0001) and safety and weather (Estimate = −0.0245, p < 0.001). The researchers conclude that "Parental concerns may be impacting children’s use of active school travel, and therefore, future interventions to promote active school travel should more actively engage parents and address these concerns through programs like the Walk to School. Read more>>
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