By Betty Kaldas
In order to graduate from Fountain Valley High School, students must accumulate a certain amount of credits by the end of their senior year. Each class taken is valued at 10 credits, with each subject requiring 2-4 years to fulfill that section’s credits. Subjects required range from math to English to science to world languages. Less important subjects that require less credits than the main subjects include performing arts, physical education and health.
Valued at just five credits, health holds the lowest value of credits amongst all the classes required. It is also the shortest length, just taking a semester to complete. These factors deter students from leaving it until junior and senior year, instead taking it as freshmen or even over the summer.
Despite its short length, the health class covers a variety of topics such as the human diet, physical exercise, mental health, sickness and diseases and sexual health. Because it only takes a semester to complete the class, students tend to take it over the summer via an online course.
The online course is easy to use and works like a real class, having you watch video notes and take tests at the end of each unit. However, because the course is taken over the summer, at home and at your own pace; it allows students to freely cheat, search up answers or ask their friends for help on assignments.
Although this may not seem like a big deal, because everyone should already be educated on such topics, health education for high school students should be taken more seriously than it currently is.
Health is thrown to the side due to a variety of reasons. Due to most topics such as nutrition, physical exercise and sickness being essentially common sense among teenagers, students don’t pay attention in their health class due to academic pressure from their other classes.
Because all topics taught in health are crammed into a single semester, it is hard to make yourself want to pay attention to the topics in class since you’ll be done in a couple months anyway. This causes students to focus their attention on their “more important” classes, such as English or math.
So how can we change students’ minds and get them to think more seriously about their own health and others? The answer starts with widening the topics being taught in a health class.
Although the current curriculum covers a good amount of important issues, adding a few more wouldn’t hurt. Topics such as first aid and CPR, menstrual health and injuries could greatly benefit the majority of students taking a health class. By stretching the span of a health course from a semester to a full year, students will become encouraged to pay more attention and take the class seriously due to it lasting a full school year, just like their other classes.
Another way to promote interest in health is to allow the students to interact more with what it is they are learning about. By letting the students become more involved with the curriculum, health classes can boost their participation rates and become a friendly environment where students can learn about their mental and physical health. Incorporating projects, assessments, and surveys can help the students in a health class become more attentive towards the subjects being taught.
Whether you are about to take a health class, currently in one or have taken it in the past years, the subjects and lessons taught in health are critical for a growing teenager.
