DOCUMENT LIBRARY
Professional Considerations
Health, Safety, Resilience, and Civility
From Taking Center Stage, Sacramento: California Department of Education,
2001, pp. 214, 215.
- The relationship between a healthy body and a healthy mind is well documented. However, many young adolescents come to school without breakfast only to see vending machines loaded with soda and candy. Yet they are overly concerned with their body image. Teachers complain that students are too tired or hyperactive to learn effectively. Analyze your school’s approach to student nutrition in light of research on proper diet, emotional balance, and mental acuity. What messages do school meals and snacks send to students? Are they consistent? What food choices are available? Are sodas, sweetened beverages, or high-fat snacks offered in the vending machines? What dining facilities are available? How much time do students have to purchase and eat their meals? Are the students involved in deciding which foods and beverages the school offers? What can PLCs do to improve the situation? Present your recommendations for change at a faculty meeting.
- Data from the annual California Healthy Kids Survey consistently shows that middle grades students watch many hours of television, eat many high-fat snack foods, and participate in very little exercise. As your school assesses the health, nutrition, and exercise needs of its students, what trends emerge? Are a significant number of your school’s students living a “couch potato” lifestyle? What can your school do to encourage a healthier lifestyle for its students? Are there ways the school community can encourage students to develop a regular program of vigorous physical exercise? Are there ways in which your school can help students to monitor their own nutrition and exercise—to set goals for themselves and to meet those goals? How can your school increase the health and fitness of its staff while doing the same for all students?
- Sleep can be an important element in ensuring students’ health and intellectual development. Many middle school students get an inadequate amount of sleep or sleep in a room with stimulation, such as television sets, computers, stereos, and video games. As a result, some adolescents are at risk of sleep deprivation. What can your school do to help all its students to get the sleep that they need for their physical and intellectual growth? How can you help students and their parents to monitor the situations in which students sleep? How can the PLC help students and their families value the role that sleep plays in assisting students to reach their maximum potential?
- Research shows the importance of building youth assets as a deterrent to high-risk behavior. Has your school examined the research? Has the PLC conducted youth-asset inventories to identify students who need help? What additional actions can the PLC take to increase youth assets? Present your recommendations to your school-wide PLC.
- Does your school have a district-developed, comprehensive violence prevention and response plan? Such a plan should address identifying warning signs, responding to imminent danger, and providing for prevention and intervention strategies developed together with appropriate community services and agencies. If a plan exists, suggest a staff review to ensure that everyone understands it, is effectively implementing it, and can make recommendations to strengthen its provisions. If no plan exists, take aggressive action through proper channels to have a plan developed.
- Does your middle school have a positive climate? Does your school emphasize and reward civility? See “Civility, Ethical Behavior, and Social Consciousness: Needs and Commitments for Students, Parents, and Teachers,” and discuss it with colleagues, students, and parents. Explore ways in which you might improve student behavior. Involve parents in your efforts.
- Is your school a healthy place in which to work for many hours each day? Are there qualitative issues that trouble you? If so, bring them to the attention of your PLC.