In May 1994, students, parents, teachers, and administrators participated in the Health Education 7, 8, and 9 Curriculum Evaluation Project conducted by Saskatchewan Education. The findings of the provincial evaluation project served to guide the renewal of the Health Education curriculum for grades 6 to 9.
The Middle Level Health Education curriculum, based on the Health Action Model, focuses on both content and process. The key components of the model are:
A wellness perspective specific to each grade level provides a developmental focus as students progress toward the achievement of the aim and goals of the curriculum. At the Middle Level, the wellness perspectives are:
The aim of Health Education from kindergarten to grade 12 is to enable students to apply health knowledge in daily life in order to increase health-enhancing behaviours and decrease health-risking behaviours.
The goals of Health Education from kindergarten to grade 12 are to:
The Health Education 7, 8, and 9 Curriculum Evaluation Project, conducted in May 1994, indicated the need for revisions to the Health Education curriculum.
The results of a number of research studies have indicated a growing concern for health promotion locally, provincially, and nationally. The studies have also identified a strong need for effective health education programs in schools.
The 1992 report entitled The Health of Canada's Youth includes these key findings:
The Canada Youth and AIDS Study (1988) and subsequent studies reported that despite their knowledge about AIDS and STDs, Canadian youth continue to behave in ways that put them at risk.
The report recommended that health programs include:
Research findings reinforce and substantiate the need for adequate and explicit health education and prevention programming at the Middle Level.
A comprehensive school health program is designed to influence positively the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours of students. Through the involvement of home, school, and community a comprehensive school health program relates to the emotional, intellectual, moral, physical, and social aspects of a student's life.
A comprehensive school health program includes a wide range of school and community personnel collaborating to enhance the well-being of students. The health instruction component of the program should be co-ordinated with health services, within a healthy school and community environment.
Comprehensive school health programs achieve their goals through:
Curriculum and Instruction
Curriculum includes topics such as physical, mental, emotional, and social development; nutrition; family life; alcohol and other drugs; safety; and more. It also includes the skills of making decisions, setting goals, and carrying out action plans to meet those goals. A variety of instructional strategies and methods are essential in addressing the many needs and interests of students.
Support Services
Health Education is more than a curriculum. It includes health services such as immunization, screening, assessment, emergency services, and counselling. Community health and school health professionals working with administrators, teachers, and students provide valuable services and support for program goals. Similarly, other community agencies provide numerous resources.
Healthy Physical Environment
Commitment to a comprehensive approach aims to achieve a school environment that is clean, safe, accessible, and conducive to and supportive of healthful living. A healthy school has good lighting, appropriate ventilation and heating, fire and safety protection, clean water, and proper waste disposal.
A healthy school environment is free from discrimination, harassment, and intimidation. It promotes health through positive staff and student rapport, positive staff role models, the provision of nutritious food choices in cafeterias and vending machines, and readily accessible facilities for physical activities.
The concept of a healthy environment requires the development of policies and regulations related to AIDS, nutrition, and smoking as well as space and building design. It can also be reinforced through such policies as setting up health education liaison committees. Such policies and regulations should promote and reinforce health curricula and services.
Social Support
Parental involvement is an element of social support. The family is the primary educator in the development of children's attitudes and values. The school plays a supportive role by focusing on the achievement of the objectives outlined in the Middle Level Health Education curriculum guide.
Other elements of social support include healthy public policy, community participation, appropriate school discipline policies, effective school management practices, peer support, and positive role modelling. These components of comprehensive school health interact with and complement each other, resulting in growth and development in students' knowledge, skills, and behaviours.
Figure 1: Comprehensive School Health Model
This model integrates curriculum, services, and the environment with home, school, and community efforts in a supportive social climate.
Health Education Liaison Committee
Saskatchewan Education continues to recommend a local liaison committee to support teachers and to facilitate coordinated planning. The committee structure and mandate vary from one area to another depending on the number of classrooms, the size of the community, health-related programming in the community, and other factors.
The main functions are to:
Membership should include:
It might also include:
Duties may include:
Frequency of meetings should be determined by the needs of the classroom and the school program. At least two meetings a year might be pre-scheduled.
The health education liaison committee might strive to work with the school, community, and health district toward comprehensive school health.
The philosophy of the Health Education curriculum for grades 6 to 9 can be described through an overview of the 'Health Action Model', illustrated in Figure 2 on the following page. All of the components identified in the Health Action Model are considered essential if students are to acquire the skills necessary to transfer health education information into 'health action' in their daily lives.
Shared Responsibility underlies the program structure. An effective health education program exists in the context of complementary programs in the total school and in the community. Recognition is given to the continuing health education provided throughout life by the home and by health care agencies.
The three-level 'Decision-making Process ' provides the process teachers and students follow as they address a variety of health education topics. Students repeatedly gain practice in applying lifelong learning skills by extending their knowledge base, making informed decisions, and carrying out action plans.
Teachers draw content from a group of required units and a bank of optional units. Required units and optional units are stated for each of grades 6 to 9. Student need and interest, community need, teacher expertise, and available resources are factors to consider when selecting optional units.
Student learning is directed toward increasing 'health-enhancing' behaviours and decreasing 'health-risking' behaviours. Health-enhancing behaviours are emphasized throughout the curriculum.
Figure 2: Health Action Model
The following four themes or perspectives provide a developmental focus for the goals as students progress through grades 6-9:
In summary, the 'Health Action' curriculum based on the Health Action Model provides practice in effective, health-enhancing information processing, decision making, and action planning. The learning outcomes of classroom study integrate what students have learned at home, from health professionals, and from formal Health Education in the classroom, the school, and the community. Students are enabled to take knowledge, process it, and act responsibly on the information in the many aspects of their lives, both present and future.
Health Education content is taught, learned, and evaluated using a decision-making
process. The three levels of the process are outlined below
.
| Decision-making Process Level A - Extend Knowledge Base 1. Reflect on what you know about the issue. Level B - Make an Informed Decision 3. State the challenge. Explore the alternatives and consequences.
Level C - Carry Out Action Plan 5. Design and apply an action plan. |
Rationale
The Decision-making Process is a part of all students' daily lives. For example, they must decide each morning what to wear and what to eat for breakfast. Whether they realize it or not, students are already making decisions. They may be unaware of the fact that some steps are important for informed decision making.
All age groups of people frequently make decisions and then do not put them into practice, or only practise them temporarily. New Year's resolutions are a classic example of this.
With these observations in mind, and in an effort to attain the curriculum aim of increasing health-enhancing behaviours and reducing health-risking behaviours, the Health Education curriculum includes the teaching and learning of the steps leading to informed decision making and the steps that will help students apply the decisions they make.
The purpose of the Decision-making Process is to teach students to make informed decisions and to implement them. These are skills that they will use throughout their lives.
Description
The Decision-making Process consists of three levels, each with two steps.
Level A of the Decision-making Process reinforces the knowledge that students already possess, expands on it, and teaches them to collect and evaluate additional information. This is the technique used by healthy people in daily life. Students who expand their knowledge and learn to gather and evaluate information are likely to make a commitment to adopting health-enhancing behaviours.
By stressing informed decision making, in Level B of the process, the teacher draws students' attention to social realities that may prompt students to put into practice what they have learned in Health Education classes. Students must be able to identify their options and the short- and long-term consequences of their choices. Students learn the role of family, peers, and community members as a support network that can be called upon to help them resist negative pressures that may end in health-risking behaviours.
Level C focuses on carrying out action plans and gives students a chance to practise the knowledge and skills they must acquire if they wish to implement their action plans in daily life. Students learn to use various approaches to evaluate their progress and review their action plans.
Repeated use of the Decision-making Process allows students the opportunities to begin assuming social and personal responsibility for their own health and that of others. Throughout grades 6 to 9, students have several chances to carry out their action plans in the classroom, the school, the community, and at home.
Teaching Each Step of the Decision-making Process
At the beginning of the school year, in the Decision-making Process Unit for each grade level, teachers are likely to guide the activities corresponding to each of the six steps quite closely. The first action plan of the year might be designed as a whole class and carried out by each individual student. The second and third action plans might be designed and carried out by individuals in grades 6 and 7, in pairs in grade 8, and by individuals or small groups in grade 9. Repeated practice enables students to gain skills in transferring health knowledge into responsible health action.
The Decision-making Process must be presented concisely if students are to understand it and use it. The following instructions emphasize the important points to be addressed at each step and are intended to guide teachers in planning activities at each step.
Level A - Extend Knowledge Base
Step 1: Reflect on what you know about the issue.
Stimulate the students' interest. Encourage them to respond to a video, picture, story, or role-playing exercise.
Identify the topic or issue. Following the students' initial reaction, clearly establish how the situation illustrates a health-related topic or issue. If applicable, encourage the students to think about how the topic affects them personally.
Recall relevant knowledge. Start a discussion, a talking circle, or a brainstorm to highlight what the students already know or feel about the topic.
Step 2: Research the issue. Find the facts.
Emphasize the need to find out more. Through discussions, checklists, personal inventories, or surveys, encourage the students to examine the extent to which their knowledge about the subject is reflected in their day-to-day behaviour. Suggest that they learn more.
Lay the groundwork for their research. Have the students think about what else they would like to know about the topic and what they need to know.
Find the facts. Invite a resource person to come to the class, read or view documentary sources, or encourage students to develop questionnaires to obtain specific information on the topic.
Level B - Make an Informed Decision
Step 3: State the challenge. Explore the alternatives and consequences.
Help students focus on one challenge that may be of concern to them from within the larger topic or issue under discussion. Encourage the students to identify different strategies to deal with the issue. Accept all suggestions at this point. A brainstorming session is a good method to use, but it often needs to be accompanied by other activities such as asking others who may be knowledgeable on the topic.
Anticipate the positive and negative consequences as well as the short-term and long-term consequences of each alternative. Help grade 9 students establish criteria to determine whether an alternative is beneficial for health and practical to apply. The criteria may include such factors as cost, expectations of others, and short-term and long-term effectiveness.
Step 4: Make a decision.
Compare the alternatives by classifying or graphing them. In grade 9, weigh the alternatives against specific criteria. Decide upon the best alternative in view of the situation. At this point, students will need guidance in order to articulate a clear, attainable goal.
Level C - Carry Out Action Plan
Step 5: Design and apply an action plan.
Prepare an action plan. Guide the students by providing them with an outline that includes the design elements they will need to put their decision into practise and reach their goal.
Implement the action plan. If applicable, communicate with parents to inform them of the action plan and explain how they can encourage and support their son or daughter in applying the action plan.
Step 6: Evaluate progress. Revise as needed.
Check the results of the action plan. Encourage students to think about whether the action plan is working well, and why or why not.
Each school year of Health Education begins with the Decision-making Process Unit as it emphasizes information processing, decision making, and action planning. It forms the basis of the year's Health Education program. In grades 6 to 9 students design and carry out a minimum of two action plans per year. The sample units for each grade level include examples of action plans. See the chart on page 14 for identification of sample units. Foundational objectives related to the Decision-making Process follow.
Foundational objectives are statements of the desired outcomes which students are intended to achieve from their involvement in a subject area in a particular year or level. While specific learning objectives apply to a daily lesson or a series of lessons, foundational objectives apply to a unit of study or several units and are achieved over the years a student spends in grades 6 to 9.
The foundational objectives that students work toward throughout Health Education from grades 6 to 9 are listed below. They are organized according to Levels A, B, and C of the Decision-making Process. In addition, each unit of study includes foundational objectives related to the topic under study.
Foundational Objectives for Level A - Extend Knowledge Base
Students will:
Foundational Objectives for Level B - Make an Informed Decision
Students will:
Foundational Objectives for Level C - Design and Carry Out an Action Plan
Students will design and carry out action plans:
The provincial Health Education curricula, grades 1-9, incorporate a specific theme or perspective for each grade. They are as follows:
| Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 |
Being Models Discovering Patterns Gathering Facts Applying Decisions Considering Expectations Affirming Standards Committing Self Supporting Peers Promoting Health |
Each year, students study Health Education from a different perspective. At the Elementary Level, the themes or perspectives help students to become increasingly independent in the use of the Decision-making Process. At the Middle Level, the perspectives enable students to become increasingly responsible for personal and community health.
The perspectives exist as a continuum. As students enter the Middle Level, it is expected that they will be able to model appropriate health-enhancing behaviours. They will be able to identify patterns in behaviour as well as patterns in what health-related information has to say on a given topic. By grade 6, students have practised the skills of locating information and deciding what is fact or opinion. They will also have considerable practise in making decisions based upon an accurate information base. Before entering the Middle Level of Health Education, students will be accustomed to listing alternatives available to them and then checking those alternatives against expectations of family and school. They will understand that the best decisions are those that have the most positive consequences on the wellness of self and others.
In Level A - Extend Knowledge Base, students in grades 6 to 9 access multiple sources of information and evaluate both the sources and the information itself. In grade 6, at Level B - Make an Informed Decision, students evaluate their alternatives and consequences in terms of their personal standards. Having done so, in Level C they can design and carry out action plans that affirm their standards.
In grade 7, at Level B - Make an Informed Decision, students generate a list of strategies and consequences that reflect the health-enhancing information accessed in Level A. Grade 7 students design and carry out action plans in which they commit themselves to health-enhancing behaviours.
Grade 8 students design and carry out action plans that focus on the skills of acting as a support to a peer. By grade 9, students design and carry out action plans that place them in a position of promoting health in their school or community.
There are required units of study at each of grades 6 to 9. There are also optional units at each grade level. In the chart on page 14, required units are positioned at the top of the chart and optional units are placed at the bottom of the chart. The shading in the chart designates sample units that have been included in this curriculum guide. The unit containing information about contraceptives, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases is outlined in the chart in a shaded box. School division board approval is required prior to teaching this unit.
There are three main specified levels of achievement within each unit. In Level A - Extend Knowledge Base, students evaluate information and sources of information. In Level B - Make an Informed Decision, students explore their options, consider the consequences of all options, and make a decision based upon current and accurate information. In Level C - Carry Out Action Plan, students design and carry out an action plan to attain the goal they set in Level B. See page 8 for a description of these levels and the Decision-making Process.
In each grade, students design and carry out a minimum of two action plans. For example, in grade 6, students learn about designing and carrying out action plans in the Decision-making Process Unit. They design and implement action plans in the Body Image Unit and the HIV/AIDS Education Unit. For these units, learning objectives are outlined for each of Levels A, B, and C. In the remaining units, learning objectives are included for Levels A and B as students will access and evaluate information (Level A) as well as make healthy decisions based on that information (Level B), but they will not necessarily carry out action plans (Level C).
Each unit includes:
Each sample unit is designed to include the six steps of the Decision-making Process. For example, in grade 8 the Decision-making Process Unit; the Family Structures, Roles, and Responsibilities Unit; and the HIV/AIDS Education Unit include each of Levels A, B, and C. This means that students will design and implement action plans and then evaluate them and revise them as needed. This process and the classroom experiences that accompany it prepare students for daily life, where people face continuous challenges that require them to make decisions and to be accountable for them.
One purpose of this section is to assist teachers with yearly planning. For those who teach grade nine students it may be planning for a semester. Consideration is given to sequencing of required and optional units. The second purpose of this section is to help in planning each unit when it is decided which units are to be included in the year.
Planning for the Year
An outline of Middle Level Health Education unit topics is included on page 14 of this curriculum guide. The time allocation for each unit is approximate. In one school year, or perhaps a semester in the case of grade nine students, the required units and one or two optional units may be taught. In another year, with another group of students, more optional units might be included.
Different teachers plan their course in different ways. The selection of optional units will depend on student interests and needs, the availability of resources, and teacher expertise.
Planning Each Unit
The foundational objectives and learning objectives for each unit are provided in this guide. Suggested instructional strategies and methods are included in each unit. Some suggestions about student assessment and evaluation are also included in each unit.
The Decision-making Process is the organizational framework for each unit. Students learn the content through the Decision-making Process. Student evaluation is based upon the three levels of the Decision-making Process.
The following questions are provided to guide the planning of each unit throughout the year.
Have I:
Have I:
Have I:
Have I:
Have I:
Have I:
Have I:
Have I:
Controversial Subject Matter
Most of the Health Education program will be non-controversial. Some topics
such as human sexuality and death, dying, and grieving can be controversial
for some people while accepted without question by others.
It is recommended that the local health education liaison committee determine potentially controversial topics through contact with their community. A variety of approaches are suggested for presenting some of these topics which may make a difference as to their acceptability.
In general, an elective 'opt-out' policy might be considered for some 'controversial' units. The advantage of an 'opt-out' policy is that it provides instruction for those who wish the instruction, while not requiring it of students whose parents prefer it not be provided by the school, allowing them to provide study at home or through a community program. While this approach requires additional administrative organization, it may assist achievement of objectives more readily than if only one alternative is offered.
When parents notify the school of their intentions to 'opt-out' of a unit on
a controversial topic, such as HIV/AIDS education, the school should ensure
meaningful alternatives are available to the student. Schools might also offer
to share materials with parents who wish to provide home study for their child.
