5th Grade Health Education Standards

Health education teaches students on mental, emotional, physical, and social health, building their skills, knowledge, and positive attitudes towards healthy living. The health standards for fifth graders in California helps students in this level to become health-literate. The standards are; essential concepts, analyzing influences, accessing valid information, interpersonal communication, decision making, goal setting, practicing health-enhancing behaviors and health promotion covering health topics on nutrition and physical activity, growth, development and sexual health, and personal and community health (California Department of Education, 2009). Teaching positive health behaviors and choices in the fifth grade lays a foundation for healthy practices in the life of the student. Health education builds students’ motivation to maintain good health, preventing diseases, and avoiding risky behavior. Nutrition and physical activity and personal and community health are topics that I consider to be most important to the fifth graders. The topics educate students on foods that improve their nutrition, the health importance of staying physically active as well as internal and external factors that can affect their personal health. Growth, development, and sexual health can be difficult to teach, but I find it the most interesting and enjoyable. Educating children on actual physical changes to expect during puberty and improving their knowledge on sexual and reproductive health will help them make the right decisions, especially in sexual health issues which makes it an interesting topic. Each of the eight standards has a rationale that helps students to understand each of the health topics. Essential health concepts standard enables students to understand the relationships between behavior and health, providing a foundation through which students adopt well-informed health behaviors and choose suitable health services and products (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Analyzing influences standards helps students to evaluate influences that affecting health, both internal and external. Students will be able to recognize, evaluate and examine internal and external factors that influence health and improve their health choices. With various existing sources of information in regard to health matters, accessing valid information is essential in enhancing healthy behaviors among children. Access to valid information standard enables to access information on health which is correct and age-appropriate promoting behaviors which enhance health. Through interpersonal communication standards, students will have the ability to communicate effectively and develop constructive interactions that will enhance their health attitudes and behaviors. The decision-making standard equips the students with critical thinking and problem-solving skills, enhancing personal control and responsibility among students. Goal setting enhances student's ability to translate health knowledge into personal health behaviors by enabling them to set health goals in order to achieve actual health results, such as setting nutritional goals through personal progress monitoring. Health promotion standard builds students' capacity to promote personal, family and community health development as interdependent aspects of health. Most of these students get health information from their parents, teachers, media, and peers. Parents and teachers are more likely to provide the correct information, but the information from the media and peers could be wrong in terms of content and age-appropriateness. Parents are an important part of student's health education as they will influence health choices and behavior in their children (Sisson et al., 2017). I will work with parents by encouraging them to involve their children in family physical activities such as taking family walks and runs together. I will also work with parents to help students in analyzing the suitable sources of information on health and enhancing communication skills for their children by allowing them to be creative and interactive. I will also support parents by providing them with appropriate nutritional education that will help them to ensure they make the right food choices for their children. I will involve them in health education sessions to ensure that they make the right health decisions at the family level.  

References

California Department of Education. (2009). Health Education Content Standards for California Public ... https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/healthstandmar08.pdf.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, May 29). Standards 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/sher/standards/1.htm.  Sisson, S. B., Smith, C. L., & Cheney, M. (2017). Big impact on small children: child-care providers’ perceptions of their role in early childhood healthy lifestyle behaviors. Child Care in Practice, 23(2), 162–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/13575279.2017.1299111