A CrossDisciplinary Approach to Teaching Health

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A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Teaching Health

• Integrating Health Objectives in the Arts,
  Humanities, and Social Studies

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Presenters

• Jane Elphingstone, Ed.D., CHES, Professor of
  Health Sciences, University of Central AR
• Rebecca Williams, Ph.A., Associate Professor of
  English, University of Central AR
• Sondra Gordy, Ed.D., Associate Professor of
  History, University of Central AR

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Objectives

• Make the case for collaboration across
  disciplines
• Describe an example of a funded project that
  involves integration of disciplines to teach
  health
• Provide examples of integration by themes across
  disciplines

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Why Collaborate?

• Philosophically sound
• Encourages every teacher to cover health
  objectives
• Provides funding sources for arts and humanities

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Preparing Elementary Teachers for Drug Prevention

• Funding provided by the State Alcohol and Drug
  Abuse Prevention Office through Federal Block
  Grant funding
• Teacher trainers show other teachers how to
  integrate the curriculum in the traditional
  elementary courses literature, sciences, art,
  and social studies

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National Health Objectives

• Standard 1 comprehend concepts related to
  health promotion and disease prevention.
• Standard 2 demonstrate the ability to access
  valid health information and health-promoting
  products and services.
• Standard 3 demonstrate the ability to practice
  health-enhancing behaviors and reduce health
  risks.

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National Standards (cont)

• Standard 4 Analyze the influence of culture,
  media, technology and other factors on health.
• Standard 5 demonstrate the ability to use
  interpersonal communication skills to enhance
  health.
• Standard 6 demonstrate the ability to use
  goal-setting and decision making skills to
  enhance health.
• Standard 7 demonstrate the ability to advocate
  for personal, family and community health.

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CDC Priority Areas

• Behaviors that result in unintentional and
  intentional injury
• Tobacco Use
• Alcohol and other drug use
• Dietary patterns that contribute to disease
• Insufficient physical activity
• Sexual behaviors that result in HIV infection,
  other sexually transmitted disease and unintended
  pregnancy.

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Standard 4 Analyze the influence of culture on
health

• Values of families, cultures and communities
  shape healthy personal and peer norms.
• Respect for one another contributes to
  self-esteem
• Understanding and acceptance of diversity is a
  healthy behavior

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Identification through imagination by way of

• complex characters and life situations in
  literature,
• groups of people and events significant in our
  history, and
• vivid sensory images from the fine arts

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Examples of Integration Literature and History

• The Holocaust
• American Immigration
• American Segregation and Economic Distress

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Literature

• What does the treatment of someone else have to
  do with me?

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The Mitten

• Acceptance of others within a diverse community

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The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt

• Is there room for me in that nice warm mitten?
  Its awfully cold out here.

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Terrible Things

• Individual and collective responsibility for
  others

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Terrible Things by Eve Bunting

• Little Rabbit leaves the clearing to warn
  others about the Terrible Thingsand he hopes
  someone will listen.

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Number the Stars

• Gaining self-confidence through responsibility
  for others

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Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

• For a moment she felt frightened. It was only
  in the fairy tales that people were called upon
  to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in
  real life Denmark.
• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
• Brave? Annemarie asked, surprised. No, I
  wasnt. I was very frightened.
• He interrupted her, smiling. Thats all brave
  meansnot thinking about the dangers. Just
  thinking about what you must do.

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Standard Four

• helping students analyze the influence of
  culture on health.

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Integrating History, Literature Art with Health

• Students can
• 1. Analyze the influence of culture and society
  through text
• 2. Realize that all people come from some
  community
• 3. Learn a respect for differences
• 4. Develop a health respect for self.

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The Holocaust

• 1. Students can examine events, deeds, and ideas
  in European history that contributed to the
  Holocaust, such as a history of Anti-Semitism

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The Holocaust

• German elementary text
• The Toadstool

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Anti-Semitism

• Just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool
  from an edible mushroom, so too it is often very
  hard to recognize the Jew as a swindler and
  criminal.

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The Holocaust

• 2. Students can reflect upon the moral and
  ethical implications of the Nazi era.
• What does the treatment of someone else have to
  do with me?

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Number the Stars

• Do NOT romanticize history to engage students
  interest.

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In WWII Denmark

• Over 7,000 Jews were safely hidden in the homes
  of non-Jewish neighbors and friends.

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Roll of Thunder, Hear My CryandThe Hundred
Dresses

• Acceptance of others different from
  ourselves
• and
• Making positive choices

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Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

• White is something, just like black is something
  and nobody, no matter what color, is better than
  anybody else.we make the difference by what we
  choose to do with our lives.

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Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression

• Disfranchisement and Jim Crow segregation.
• Economics of the South

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The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

• After a long, long time Maddie reached an
  important conclusion. She was never going to
  stand by and say nothing again. If she ever heard
  anybody picking on someone because they were
  funny looking or because they had strange names,
  shed speak up.

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History as background for the literature

• Poland before 1920
• 1890-1920 immigrants of Polish ancestry numbered
  15 million
• After WWII Polish immigration

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Three Principles

• Democratic institutions are not automatically
  sustained.
• Silence and indifference to suffering of others
  serve to perpetuate the problems.
• There are few accidents in history.

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Summary

• Integrating health education objectives in other
  elementary education courses is one way to teach
  health.
• All teachers can focus on the teaching of
  national health standards.
• Health programs may be sources of funding for
  elementary educators.