Health and Wellness

Culture and Community

"Knowing thy Body"

Health and wellness is another important characteristic of a great school.  This is especially a needed part of helping young adolescents in their development. In the textbook, This We Believe, it says, “a coordinated health program concentrates on those areas of students’ lives that either enhance or interfere with learning”.

Health programs implemented within the school system is part of the school’s structure and foundation for wellness of students.  Young adolescents are going through changes including puberty which not only affects them physically, but emotionally as well.  Their social behavior and the discovery of the new physical bodies and the changes, create a world of mystery, wonder and confusion for young adolescents.

Health and wellness programs, which are integrated or become part of the curriculum, become a way to give students information on the reasons why their bodies are changing and how to address the problems that comes with development of body odor,  first menstrual, eating disorders and unhealthy snacking, physical fitness and health preventions.

Young adolescents are affected by all types of influences including one of the most important influences, the media.  Media tells our students how much they should weigh to look beautiful, what type of nose or eyes they have to had to be considered lovely, what is normal hair or skin color.  Our students listen to radio, watch television, listen to podcasts, text message, browse the Internet and live for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

Unfortunately, not everything communicated with these devices are beneficial for our students.   Some of it is “bad advice” and our students are very impressionable especially during adolescence.   We want our students to have the correct knowledge so it can be utilized in the correct way.

Teaching our students how to resolve social confrontations and communicate effectively about their needs and issues is also a part of health and wellness and when our lessons model acceptable behavior, our very observant students can mirror them and also become a more integrate part of the world around them.

In our school, which is a District 75 school with a population of students with Autism we integrate life skills as part of the overall curriculum.  Our students are learning about health and wellness through a science curriculum and lesson plans.  We have developed hands-on lessons that have our students looking at diseases and understanding the causes of disease.  This is the way we link what they are learning to real life application.

The video above was created and produced by the "Jeffco Public Schools" of Colorado.

Here is the link.

Jeffco Public Schools Health Video