By Mike R Miller
With all of the recent cutbacks in secondary education across the country one program that has taken a serious hit of late are health programs. These are comprehensive classes that cover everything from the human body and sex education to anti-alcohol and anti-drug messages.
The problem of high school education is grave and far too deep for me to solve. However, I have long been a proponent of high school classes being more geared to post-school life, especially in 11th and 12th grades. Judging from the last sentence you know that I think we must keep our health classes.
An even crazier idea is that there be two separate high school paths. As it stands now, it is a difficult balance because there is so much stress and pressure to get into college that those striving for higher education can't seem to take enough college-level academic courses, while playing three sports two instruments and holding class office. Where is there room for health and PE?
On the other side, for those with no expectations of college, they need to be better prepared to enter the work force. Things were much better when I was a kid. At least we had auto shop and home economics. Some high schools even had welding, plumbing and electrical classes. This group certainly does not need to take calculus or even chemistry and physics.
Our education system needs to get back to what's important. Academically, we need to teach them to read, write, basic mathematics and how expand upon what is written and said in a thoughtful way.
But so too must we educate them the most basic things all humans really need to survive. This is your high school health class. This should be more than a one semester elective, it needs to become a mandatory staple in every high school classroom in America.
It is not ironic that teens are actually at a perfect age to learn what is taught in health class. They need to learn about their bodies. They need to understand what they are going through. They need to try and come to some sort of possible grasp of what is going inside their rapidly-changing bodies.
Teens need not only learn, but feel the message about how their bodies respond to external and internal stimuli. Peer pressure is much-better handled with a health education class.
Now with hormones and peer pressure throw in the rebellious possibility of illegally drinking alcohol and taking illicit drugs. Health class addresses these very issues. An important part of health class is alcohol awareness class.
There is not one high school student, despite the path they may choose later in life, who cannot benefit from a high school health class, complete with a drug and alcohol class.
As a society we must continue to look outside the box at our children's education. We have to keep in sight of what is truly important. We must help them grow and mature so that they too can become responsible adults. Health and alcohol awareness classes are crucial to the future of our society.
With all of the recent cutbacks in secondary education across the country one program that has taken a serious hit of late are health programs. These are comprehensive classes that cover everything from the human body and sex education to anti-alcohol and anti-drug messages.
The problem of high school education is grave and far too deep for me to solve. However, I have long been a proponent of high school classes being more geared to post-school life, especially in 11th and 12th grades. Judging from the last sentence you know that I think we must keep our health classes.
An even crazier idea is that there be two separate high school paths. As it stands now, it is a difficult balance because there is so much stress and pressure to get into college that those striving for higher education can't seem to take enough college-level academic courses, while playing three sports two instruments and holding class office. Where is there room for health and PE?
On the other side, for those with no expectations of college, they need to be better prepared to enter the work force. Things were much better when I was a kid. At least we had auto shop and home economics. Some high schools even had welding, plumbing and electrical classes. This group certainly does not need to take calculus or even chemistry and physics.
Our education system needs to get back to what's important. Academically, we need to teach them to read, write, basic mathematics and how expand upon what is written and said in a thoughtful way.
But so too must we educate them the most basic things all humans really need to survive. This is your high school health class. This should be more than a one semester elective, it needs to become a mandatory staple in every high school classroom in America.
It is not ironic that teens are actually at a perfect age to learn what is taught in health class. They need to learn about their bodies. They need to understand what they are going through. They need to try and come to some sort of possible grasp of what is going inside their rapidly-changing bodies.
Teens need not only learn, but feel the message about how their bodies respond to external and internal stimuli. Peer pressure is much-better handled with a health education class.
Now with hormones and peer pressure throw in the rebellious possibility of illegally drinking alcohol and taking illicit drugs. Health class addresses these very issues. An important part of health class is alcohol awareness class.
There is not one high school student, despite the path they may choose later in life, who cannot benefit from a high school health class, complete with a drug and alcohol class.
As a society we must continue to look outside the box at our children's education. We have to keep in sight of what is truly important. We must help them grow and mature so that they too can become responsible adults. Health and alcohol awareness classes are crucial to the future of our society.
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