Category Archives: Education

Wisconsin is full-steam ahead for #Skillsbasedhealthed

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Two claps and a Rick Flair  . . . WOOOOOO!

 

This was the attention grabber Dr. Sally Jones used in our skills-based health education pre-conference session at the Wisconsin Best Practices Academy in July. I don’t know why but it has stuck with me and will always remind me of this amazing conference! (here is a link to the Rick Flair Wooo on YouTube in case you are interested)

 

One of the best parts of presenting at and/or attending conferences is the positive energy and enthusiasm that everyone has. I never fail to leave a conference energized, empowered and excited to continue the important work we are all doing.

 

There are so many great things happening in Wisconsin – they are working hard to get skills-based health education throughout the state. It was a pleasure to watch their training cadre, a group of skilled educators who are leading the way for other teachers, present their work – skills-based health ed is going strong in WI and it was inspiring to see how these teachers have taken the foundation and made it their own. Some people you want to follow on Twitter if you aren’t already (members of the cadre):  Mary Wentland @prideandjoymary, Deborah Tackmann @deborahtackmann, Meg Whaley @13_meggy, Kaitlyn Bloemer @bloemerPE.

 

Not only that, but Holly and I had around 45 educators who spent 6 hours (on a beautiful summer day) at our pre-con session diving into all things skills-based! We were so impressed with the ideas, commitment, and passion these educators had to skills-based health education and for helping their students to be healthy and well.

 

We were so happy to see many of those same educators (yes, they actually came back to see us two days in a row!) and some new people join us for a shorter, one hour session on assessment. This seems to be an area that many people are curious about and find challenging – especially thinking about how to translate performance-based assessments into grades beyond rubric criteria. Even if you weren’t able to join us in Wisconsin, we wanted to share the presentations with you and are including a link to some of the resources that we used. To access the presentations and resources from Wisconsin, click here. We are happy for you to use and distribute the resources but please give us attribution!

 

More to come soon . . .

#KidsDeserveHealthEd – Building a Movement Together

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Anytime you go to a conference, it is easy to get excited about what you learned or maybe you even vow to do something different to improve your practice once you return. Then, life happens…we dive right back into family, work, other commitments, and suddenly our excitement for our new learning fades and even our best intentions can’t pull us back on course.

Since we returned from the 2018 SHAPE America National Convention, however, we have been a buzz with excitement for the great work going on in the field of health education. We feel the momentum just keep getting stronger and stronger to make our health ed classrooms a place where students increase their self-efficacy, become more health literate, and recognize their role in crafting a healthy future. What started as assessment workshops for teachers back in the early 2000’s has turned into this exciting shift in how we teach health education.

 

In fact, in her address to the convention body, SHAPE America President, Judy Lobianco challenged us to make this the year of the health educator… and we couldn’t agree more.

 

For us, the convention also provided an opportunity to share new resources and connect with many health educators. Those connections and that energy is what prompted us to consider the WHY? of teaching health education. 

 

Why do you do this everyday? Why do we teach students and train future educators? Why does this all matter?

 

For us, the reason is fairly straightforward – kids deserve it. They deserve educators who are willing to challenge them to think critically, to help them work through discomfort in order to gain confidence and competence to make health-enhancing choices, and who understand that health is complex and ever changing.

We all have our own WHY. The momentum that health education is gaining is real, and it’s contagious (thankfully in a good way) and we challenge you this week to share your WHY.

Tell at least two other people your reason for working to ensure that kids receive quality health education. 

Share on social media and use #KidsDeserveHealthEd

 

There are lots of #healthedheroes out there – let’s share our stories and create a groundswell – one that benefits our students and their future. Let’s tell everyone WHY our students deserve high quality health education. One could even argue – their lives depend on it.