Health Symposium Vignette 3

Gerald has been teaching health education at Kendall High School for three
years. He is one of four health teachers and loves to teach this subject. Be-
cause the focus of the school has been reading, math, science, and fitness,
Gerald feels that health has been overlooked. He has spent a large amount
of time determining the standards his health class should use, and is very
proud of his work. It took him almost a year to come up with the following
standards for his health course and is positive that very student:
1.Knows the availability and effective use of health services, products,
and information
2.Knows environmental and external factors that affect individual and
community health
3.Understands the relationship of family health to individual health
4.Knows how to maintain mental and emotional health
5.Knows essential concepts and practices concerning injury prevention
and safety
6.Understands essential concepts about nutrition and diet
7.Knows how to maintain and promote personal health
8.Knows essential concepts about the prevention and control of dis-
ease
9.Understand aspects of substance use and abuse
10.Understands the fundamental concepts of growth and development.

It has taken an enormous amount of time and energy to create his health
course. He decided to heavily supplement the district adopted curriculum
with materials he has discovered on his own. He feels very confident that
most of it is medically accurate, but occasionally he has a few parents or stu-
dents challenge the content of his course. Luckily, he has been able to work
with them, so nothing has been brought to School Board.

Over time Gerald has become concerned with the equitability of health edu-
cation in his high school. When he meets with his department, he realizes
that all of them are teaching different topics and to different standards. Like-
wise, he realizes that half of his department uses the district adopted materi-
al, and the other half uses materials they have found on their own. Essen-
tially, students at Kendall High School will receive a different health educa-
tion depending on the teacher they get. This has disturbed Gerald for some
time. He also knows that some of his colleagues do not teach to the stand-
ards, and that some of the information they are using is medically inaccur-
ate, but he doesn’t know how to address this issue without causing trouble in
a very friendly department.