Public Hearing Sites, Link To Draft of Changes
(4/30/99)
State educators are in the process of changing the content matter your
teenagers will learn in health class.
Recent violence in Colorado and other schools, shows it's time to update
how we address student health issues.
Education Specialist Nadine Wimmer reports.
An anti-alcohol music video is one example of what students discuss in
health class, along with fitness, hygiene and first aid.
And while these topics are important, a year-long series of school
shootings across the country, including here in Utah, show it's time to
re-focus the student health curriculum.
Margaret Rose, of the State Curriculum Department, says, "While we'd like to
spend an enormous amount of time talking about all kinds of different health,
physical health and fitness... There seem to be more critical health issues out
there."
State educators are in the process of revising.
Where old texts centered on physical health, new ones would address mental
health.
Instead of just learning signs of disease, students would learn signs of
depression.
Nutrition would look more than at the 4 food groups, but supplements, like
the popular creatine muscle booster.
Controversial issues like sex ed, AIDS, and suicide, will still be
included, but with more than just the focus of physical health.
Margaret Rose says, "Right now we see it as really more of a total well being,
a complete health, mental, physical, emotional health."
These sorts of issues often set off alarms with parents, so there is a way
you can get involved with this curriculum change.
The State will host a public hearing Monday night. To find out different
locations, click here.
