Health and social issues in the classroom: No dumping please

• In Event: Round-Table Session 5
  In Round-table Session: Health Literacy, Life Skills, Social Inclusion: Defining Minimum Outputs for Core Health Personal-Social Development (HPSD Education)

Proposal

Classroom teachers play several roles in promoting health, safety, social, economic and sustainable development. Traditionally, teacher education and development has focused on their teaching role, with activities designed to help teachers to know more about what to teach (learning outcomes), the teaching/learning methods or processes to reach those outcomes and occasionally, more appropriate methods for assessing student learning relative to these social goals of education.

However, the other roles played by teachers are also important. These include teacher awareness and knowledge about the issue, their ability and willingness to identify and refer students or fellow staff who may be experiencing difficulties to various sources of support, their ability and willingness to help students and parents manage their illnesses or problems within the school day, their use of appropriate classroom management techniques and their willingness to enforce school guidelines as well as participate in whole school and community activities related to the issue.
A significant and immediate challenge arises when proponents of various programs addressing these many, many health & social issues use a short term, sporadic and competitive approach to preparing teachers on these issues.
We need to use a work-force development approach that uses a career/life-long approach to teacher education & development. We need TED programs to go beyond simply preparing teachers to teach a specific program to one that addresses their concerns, beliefs and the constraints they face in talking about these issues. This presentation will map out how the health, social, law enforcement and civil protection sectors can successfully integrate their content into the various stages and structures of teacher education and development.

Author

• Martin Henry, Education International