Health Education Curriculum

Meeting our basic human needs lie largely in part to being health literate individuals,and we should hold health instruction to a high regard with our students. Producing health literate individuals can lead to our students living up to their full potential. For our students to be able to perform at their optimal level, they need to be well aware of how to use health resources and call upon well-known health facts to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Since our students spend the majority of their time learning from their educators, it would be inevitable for our schools to start including a health instruction in the curriculum of the school. To give students the best health instruction, our schools need to have strong and universal standards that

will assist in preparing our students to become college and career ready individuals that can successfully take care of their mind, body, soul, and human relationships. Both Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource and the National Health Education Standards are Comprised of advantageous information and resources that can aid in the acquisition implementation of a successful quality health education curriculum. These two documents hold many similarities and differences that aid to make the application of health education in our schools a more effortless.
As with all educational standards such as the College and Career Readiness(CORE), both the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource and the National Health Education Standards serve as a guide that informs educational professionals of what students should be able to know and do at each grade level. Additionally, both of these standards are not expected to be strictly followed by in the order that it is presented, education professionals have the advantage of using those documents and modifying or enhancing it to meet the needs of their students. Additional similarities also lie in the standards that both documents contain. Another important fact to note is that the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource refers to the standards as competencies. Each document contains 8 standards that are accompanied by an explanation of actions that students should be able to perform upon the acquisition of the standard. These explanations are referred to as ‘performance indicators’ in the National Health Education Standards and ‘suggested objectives’ in the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource.
Moreover, there are additional similarities that are present in the structure and components between both documents. The 8 standards of each document both mirror each other, with the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource basing their curriculum off of the 8 national standards that were set forth in 2007. The standards focus on teaching healthy behaviors and skills that will assist in the maintenance of people’s mind, body, soul, and relationships. The eight standards,as with other educational standards, serve to inform education professionals of what students should be able to know and do by the end of the implementation of the health education curriculum.
Before going into more detail about both documents it would be important to note a number of dissimilar factors. The grade levels are sectioned off differently between both documents. There are standards listed for each grade level but the Mississippi standards have curriculum guide, the educational standards and it other components, for every grade level. Whereas with the national standard’s have sectioned the grades of and created a curriculum guide for the following four sections: Pre K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Equally as important with the standards is the behavior skills and content that each of the standards promises to teach. The 8 standards are synonymous across all grade levels. Each of the standards relates to authentic situations, highlights the usefulness of community resources, promotes methods and practices that support a healthy lifestyle, teaches important personal self-regulation skills(e.g. decision making strategies, goal setting, communication, etc.), and much more. With such strong standards set into place, equally strong performance indicators and competencies from both documents must back them up.
The performance indicators and suggested objectives from both documents can be viewed as goals to assist in acquiring the practical ledge and crucial skills that are necessary for adopting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. These goals focus on filling training and informing our students about authentic health information that is needed to become a self-sufficient adult. As I mentioned before, the performance indicators and suggested objectives of both to of these documents specifically name actions that the students must be able to do to show proficiency in each of the standards. A major difference between both of the performance indicators and suggested objectives from either document is that they are both not synonymous like the 8 standards for each document are. For instance, a performance indicator for the first standard in the National Health Education Standards , for Pre K-2, ask students to to "identify that healthy behaviors affect personal health" (2007,pg. 1). Whereas a suggested objective from the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource, for Kindergarten, ask the students to be .
The Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource has a diverse multitude of additional resources to offer educational professionals that can assist in the successful implementation of a health curriculum. This curriculum resource first starts off by introducing an act that was mandated by Mississippi in 2007 that advises that both health and physical education be strengthened in Mississippi to will aid in the minimization of obesity. I found it to be very enriching that this framework included such an ac because it not only stresses the importance of health education,but it also informs educational professional of the requirements set by the state for health education.(2012,pg.1). The Mississippi health curriculum resource continues to define health education by giving readers an overall definition of all of the components of it and by also defining what a health literate individual is. In addition to these details, a philosophy, mission statement, and purpose is stated within the document. This all continues to support Mississippi urgency to reduce obesity within their state and to start with the students to produce more health literate individuals.
As mentioned previously, the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource components include eight competencies, the eight standards from the National Health Education Standards, that is parallel across all grade levels and are backed up by suggested objectives, which are actions that students have to perform to indicate acquisition of the competencies.

Other components include the following: suggested teaching strategies, suggested assessments, content strands, a list of enduring understandings and essential goals, vocabulary, sample lesson plans, electronic and literacy resources, and a student competency profile. Together, all of these components provide education professionals with strong assistance in both creating and apply an effective health education

curriculum.
The content strands, a factor that is present in generally all Mississippi frameworks, are symbols that represent the different aspects of health that will be taught in the proposed health curriculum such as disease prevention and control, safety and first aid,and substance abuse prevention (Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource, 2012, pg.

6-7). The nine strands are attached to either of the eight competencies that will include the attached aspects of health through the teaching of one of the competencies. The enduring understandings enumerated in this curriculum resource quickly states what students will learn. The essential questions given are starting points for educational units that are currently being used in many school districts across Mississippi. These questions will be essentially answered through the teaching of the proposed health curriculum. The vocabulary listed in this curriculum resource gives teachers and idea of the kind of vocabulary that is necessary for students to know at each grade level with health education. The student competency profile is just a copy of a checklist that will aid teachers in keeping track of the competencies that their students have mastered. The last few pages of this Mississippi health curriculum resource includes a list of activities and template worksheets that teachers can use in their health education curriculum. In addition, a list common core standards for reading and writing that can be

addressed through the implementation of this proposed health curriculum are included along with a list of the National Health Education Standards.
Through reading both of educational standards, it has become very obvious to me that for our students to be college and career ready we have to educate them with more than just the general subjects such as math and english. Our students need to be versed with the skills and information that will aid them in making informed healthy decisions. How can our students function without information about disease prevention, mental health, human growth and development, and the importance of nutrition and fitness. To obtain the advance and competent future that we all hope for, we need to start instilling the values, knowledge, and skills we lacked in the past. This starts with the application of educational standards in all of the aspects of life, including health. Both of these standards, the National Health Education Standards and the Mississippi Contemporary Health (K-8) Curriculum Resource , are identical apart from the many additional resources that are offered with the Mississippi standards. Used together, a more apt generation will be ready to take on the world and everything that life throws at them.