Academic Success And Improved Student Health Outcomes

Why is the focus of school health education important to help achieve academic success and improved student health outcomes? School health education is focused on implementing and producing students with accurate health information to help practice heightened health behaviors into their daily lives. According to Telljohann, Symons, Pateman, and Seabert (2016), “…today’s school health education helps students develop the functional knowledge and skills they need to adopt, practice, and maintain healthy-enhancing behaviors” (p. 57). The National Health Education Standards in 1995 helped implement this change into the importance is school health education. These standards are important for student success because of the skills-based approach. This approach encourages students to learn health information and evaluate the information for themselves instead of memorizing facts. Health & Academics

The standards are an important part of addressing school health education by encouraging educators to address different activities and learning outcomes. The idea behind these standards are to get teachers away from the typical common approaches and allow students to critically think by adopting new ways to learning. Telljohann, Symons, Pateman, and Seabert (2016) state, “…common approaches to health education (having students take notes from lectures, memorize information for a test, or complete stacks of work sheets0 show little or not evidence of being effective” (p. 70). By incorporating the NEHS into lesson planning, teachers are able to focus on their students, determine what results are wanted for the children to understand, ensure that there is authentic assessment, engage in an active learning, and then reflect on what the children learned. Lesson planning is an effective skill that teachers need for students academic