The Health Teachers Network

Year 5 Sex education class, lets use guest speakers, be interactive and address real questions from young people.... skip 7 years, VCE Health Class, read chapter 3, answer questions from 2-9... Sense something wrong? Writing this blog for other teachers has personally allowed me to reflect on my current teaching mentality and build my on my pedagogical approach. The last 4 blogs about  Food, Digital learning, Youth Voice and Sexuality  has emphasised the overwhelming potential to not only engage students in their learning, but empower them to do something with it.  Reflecting back to the IVAC model, when creating units large or small it is beneficial to recognise the how investigation can lead to change and action. It is important to note that within your classrooms participation of student's will be ever changing (remember these students have more in their life than your class) as shown in Harts (1994) Ladder example, the many levels of participation. Building a...

'Youth voice' is a remodelling of the term 'youth participation', as teachers, the thought of student voice can raise hairs on the back of your neck when thought of in the wrong context, Friday afternoon, end of a 12 week term, student voice may cause all sorts of anxiety. To reduce your anxiety, the context we are looking at this week is participatory approaches to Health education. Promote students to be a part of, share something, be empowered and take ownership of actions. Participation is more than involvement, it is involvement with connection and influence.  Cheryl Kane's work shop providing fantastic evidence of youth voice in the difficult context of drug education. The idea of students leading conversations and questioning drugs when relating to their own demographic. Tokenism: Adult describes what they would like from a youth perspective. Youth informed/youth consulted: students attend a drug education program with interactive intentions. Youth ...

SEX......here we go, clear the throat and get ready to think on your feet teachers, this is the mothership of health classes where anything can happen. But does it have to be this way? Lets discuss.  SEXTING.... adults often work in a reactive manner toward negative incidents, scrambling to put out the fire of the situation. Adults will then stake claims that sexting is a serious crime and be avoided by all young people. Reflecting back to voice and participation, students may take the adults claims and rebel against strict opinions. Young people are aware, Albury suggests rather than focusing on the positive and negative we invite openness to our discussions with young people in an attempt to reduce the fear and shame that opposition can create. Schools do need a reactive plan in place for serious incidents. Image; Selfie from my backyard completing essay's with a coffee. BODY Image...  Due to the over sexualisation of today's media young people both male and fem...

Do you remember sitting in a waiting room, and meticulously looking for a magazine, health pamphlet, fitness  brochure or a cheeky burn fat with Woman's Day (guys I'm looking at you too)? Do you remember being unwell and needing to see your doctor, waiting an hour for a 5 minute appointment to only basic advice? Lets face it most of us in the teacher profession have experienced this. But how do you search for health information now? Importantly, how do our students source information? It's easy to forget how we used to behave prior to the digital age, with the touch of a button, or an "ok Google" we can know anything our mind desires. Excitingly, so can our pupils! The digital healthcare sector is evolving everyday, and we are constantly further informed about our health and wellbeing (if we want to be). Now a doctors appointment can involved; researching your symptoms on WebMD, booking your doctors appointment through an online booking system, see the doct...

Do you remember being taught nutrition in school? Remember learning calories, Kj, Carbs, Fats, Proteins and Fats....Did I say fats? And then how to eat all these things from a range of sources, but not to much, although if you do this much exercise you can eat more. Hang on, what about my BMI? Bored Yet? Well believe it or not, for the majority of students nutrition dense information continues to have little effect on their health. Consequently, the new curriculum has changed the focus area of 'nutrition' to the more appropriate topic of 'food and nutrition' ( Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2014).  The inclusion of food signifies that health education is not merely about teaching children and young people the nutritional values and guidelines, but also about food ways, food literacy and food studies more broadly. Whilst understanding  food intake and how the body utilises nutrients for growth, development and health is...