6

HEALTH CONTENT OF THE FUTURE

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

THE JOURNAL OF SCHOOL HEALTH 133

subject matter of health education will penetrate the elementary school curriculum not by correlation and integration but by direct instruction. Children will be taught correct dental health practices and not a variety of dental habits promoted by advertisers. Mental health behaviors as well as signs of emotional health problems will be stressed. Such topics as “Honesty,” “Tolerance,” and “Acceptance of One’s Self” will enter the elementary school and not be pushed aside until the secondary school. Children will become more aware of sound dietary practices so that they can avoid the possik’ility of obesity. Scientific information as to nutrition and nutritional deficiencies will be taught rather than a repetition of the basic food groups.

Children will discover that diseases are caused by bacteria and viruses or other causative agents of diseases and not by germs. They will see bacteria in microscopic fields and be able to indicate how bacteria are spread. Droplet infection and other methods of contact in the spread of diseases will be prevented in the future elementary school. Tuberculin testing will be accepted by elementary school children as a vital phase of tuberculosis control. Rabies, insect-borne diseases, water pollution, and sewage treatment will be known to fourth, fifth, and sixth grade children.

Children will discuss diabetes, epilepsy, rheumatic heart diseases, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and leukemia since these non- remediable conditions do occur to children. Even though these non- remediable health conditions will be thoroughly investigated in the future secondary school, these elementary school children will understand that they can accept and assist persons with these nonremediable conditions. Family life education will start at kindergarten and continue through the elementary school, with new content a t each age level, so that fifth and sixth grade girls will be familiar with menstrual hygiene and the fifth and sixth grade boys acquainted with their personal health problems. Children will evaluate nostrums, self-medication procedures, and health fallacies.

Units of American Red Cross First Aid will include care of a snakebite and other wounds its well as new techniques of artificial respiration. Fundamentals as to self-preservation in the event of radiation sickness will be taught and practised. Thus, the health content in the elementary school of the future will be realistic, vital, and informative.

Health content in the secondary school of the future. There will be a definite trend a t the secondary school level to stress health education subject matter and not physiology. This change of subject matter will affect secondary school health education textbooks. Instead of a secondary school health education textbook devoting three-fourths of its contents to the physiological functions of the human body, the future secondary school health education textbook will consist of health education topics. These topics will be divided among twelve areas of health education:

1. Care of all parts of the human body 2. Prevention of diseases 3. Nonremediable health conditions 4. American lied Cross First hid 6. Mental hedth

-__ ‘CHE JOURSAI, OF SCHOOL HEALTH

~

6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

Misuse of alcohol, tobacco, narcotics and other stimulants and depressants Nutrition Consumer health Family life education Adult health problems Community health International health

Some of the units within these twelve areas of health education will be air pollution, health careers, radiation sickness, quackery, barbiturates, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, heart diseases and their relation to cholesterol, cerebral palsy, arthritis, and allergies. Other units will be health problems of Latin and South America, obesity and weight control, mental illness, nutritional deficiencies, group voluntary health insurance. dental health problems of adults, venereal diseases, tuberculosis, cancer, malaria, alcohol and alcoholism, and smoking and lung cancer. With the advances in medical science, the teacher will need five to ten class periods, of fifty minutes each, to cover a unit such as cancer. This type of health education content will require professionally prepared teachers of health education for the secondary school.

Students will be encouraged to read from medical and public health journals and to seek authentic health facts. Student surveys, interviews, and questionnaires will probe a t individual and community health prob- lems. As a subject matter field. health education classes will have daily tests, course outlines, reading lists, and “stiff” final examinations. How- ever, not only knowledge but changes in health practices and attitudes will be evaluated. Research studies such as the one conducted in the Austin, Texas, public secondary schools by the University of Texas as to the smoking habits of boys and girls will reveal basic evidence as to thc appropriate age level to introduce a unit on smoking and the changes in smoking habits as a result of the unit. Thus, the health content in the secondary school of the future will be provocative, timely, and challenging.

Health content in the basic college health educatiort course for freshmen of the future. Recently, the American Medical Association emphasized the need for the basic college health education course for freshmen. This course in the future will be based upon research studies of the health problems of college students, adults, and local communities. These topics will include psychosomatic medicine, health problems of marriage, pregnancy, birth defects, illnesses of infants and children, family medical care, and advantages and disadvantages of socialized medicine. Other topics such as health in space travel, radiation sickness, peaceful medical uses of radiation, Asian and African health problems, legal aspects of consumer health, treatment of mental illness, disorders of the central nervous system, and prevention, of now unknown, virus diseases will penetrate the basic college health education course. Research studies of nutritionists, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists will bt, investigated as well as medical and public health research.

Within the past twenty years, these basic college health education courses h a w undergone tremendous changes. In January 1956, the Xational Conference on College Health Education stressed thew broad areas for this basic college health course: personal health promotion, miotional and qocial health, and planning for health protection. These

THE JOURNAL O F SCHOOI, HEALTH 155

topics are far different from the physiology and anatomy taught in these courses in the past. Emotional health. as a division of one of these areas, will require a profemionally prepared professor of health education whose background includes many phases of mental health as well as graduate courses in health education. At times, this future basic college health education course may have professors of the medical and other professional whools as contributing consultants to the course. Thus, the basic college health education course for freshmen of the future will be academically acceptable and stimulating.

Health content i l z the professional school health courses, undergraduate dnd graduate levels, vf the future. The future content of health education in the elementary ,and secondary schools and the content of the basic college health educ.ation course will depend upon the future quality of instruction in the professional school health education courses. It is within these courses, at the undergraduate and graduate levels, that the health education subject matter is taught and the future teacher of health education is prepared.

No longer will the health education subject matter for the elementary .ichool and for the secondary school be taught in a single three semester hour course. Rather, there will be undergraduate courses in mental health, family life education, problems in alcoholism and drug addiction, international health, nutrition in health education, consumer health, environmental sanitation, infectious diseases to man, dental health, and adult health problems. ,4t the present, courses in safety education, American Red Cross First Aid, anatomy, and physiology are considered the subject matter of health education even though this content only accounts for a small percentage of the basic health education subject matter.

In the future, cciurses in methods of' health education will be replaced by courses in the school health program. These courses will focus school health services as an integral part of the total health program. School health services mill not be limited to the prevention of diseases but will emphasize dental health, teacher's observations, screening of vision and hearing, emergency care, and non-remediable health conditions. Com- munity resources, who01 environmental factors, health of the teacher, school nutrition, and the organization and administration of the health program will be as important as school health services. These courses dealing with the school health program will not be taught in a two or three semester hour block of time but will reach every elementary and secondary school classroom teacher, school administrator, instructional supervisor, school nurse, and physical educator at both undergraduate and graduate levels

Graduate work in the professional school health education courses will explore the problems of in-service education, legality of the school health program, health education subject matter to change health practices and attitudes, evaluative criteria, and administration and supervisory techniques. This graduate work will be a pioneering endeavor penetrating estabIished concepts of health education and exposing these concepts as limited and out-of-date.

The crucial aspect of the undergraduate and graduate courses in school health is . . , who shall be the professors? Most teachers prepared in health education leave teaching for positions in official and nonofficial

156 THE JOURNAL OF SCHOOL HEALTH

health agencies. Many of these teachers do not continue with graduate work in school health education. In the United States, there are very fem qualified professors of school health education in accredited colleges and universities with undergraduate and graduate programs in health educa- tion. In a single year, no more than twenty-five doctoral candidates in school health education will finish their studies. Thus, the quality of the professional school health courses, undergraduate and graduate levels, of the future, may be seriously jeopardized by the lack of qualified professors. However, the demands for subject matter in health education a t the elementary and secondary school levels and the increased recognition of the school health program may stimulate colleges and universities to seek professors with major preparation in health education. Teachers of health education in the secondary schools may be encouraged to continue their professional preparation with the possibility of a college position. Thus, the health content in the professional school health courses, of the future, will depend upon the health content of the elementary and secondary schools, growth of the school health program which identifies health education as the most important part of the program, and steady recognition of the teacher or professor of health education.

Whether the health content is intended for the elementary school or for a graduate course in school health, the health content of the future will be realistic, provocative, challenging, and academically acceptable.

* HOW WE DO IT f?

STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN A TUBERCULIN TESTING PROGRAM IN A SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Historically in San Francisco, it has been the custom for the Health Department to give public health nursing services to the schools. One of the major annual school health programs since 1956 has been tuberculin skin testing on students in selected grades. Although this test is highly encouraged, it is not mandatory; consequently, about one-third of the selected students, for one reason or another, fail to take the test.

The Health Department feels it sufficiently important to have this program yearly in San Francisco. At Galileo High School this program is especially important because the student enrollment of 2400 d r a w largely from an area with a high incidence of tuberculosis.

In the past, the program was handled by the school nurse and the teachers. This year i t was conceived that a “DO IT YOURSELF I’IAh“’ on the part of the student might stimulate greater participation.

This article is intended to show the degree to which students in the tenth and twelfth grades assumed responsibility for the program and thc very significant results that ensued.

Having secured a date from the Health Department that would not be in conflict with some major school event, the school nurse presented the “DO IT YOURSELF” idea to the principal for his approval, and having obtained his consent, arranged to speak at the following meeting* to appraise the respective group9 of the plan: