Why Do We Need Health Class?

Part of the AISG Curriculum from six to ten grade is PE, and with PE comes health class.

According to Mr. Tomassen,  a PE and Health teacher at AISG, the goal of AISG’s health curriculum is to “give students the background information needed on topics that are relevant to young people’s lives, and the tools to make these healthy decisions. It is also to help students understand how their decisions affect other people to hopefully have a positive influence on the community”

Health class is also a vital part of the curriculum because students often aren’t able to have the conversations that they have in health class in most other environments. Without the information taught in health class “there will always be a gap in [what students know],” says Mr. Tomassen. He also adds that “it’s not healthy for young people to make decisions on topics they don’t have an understanding of or get the information from their peers, so it is important that we have these conversations during a class.”

During middle school, health class was kept to only 45 minutes for one semester, with health class switching to another class like drama, tech, or multi media during the other semester. In 9th grade there was occasionally a health class throughout the year, but for most of the year there was PE for 85 minutes. However, during the final year of PE in 10th grade, health class takes up 45 minutes of every PE class and sometimes even takes up the entire 85 minutes of class.

This sudden increase in health classes during 10 grade has led to many 10th grade students becoming increasingly frustrated with the work and demands that have to be met to get a good grade. Many students are saying that health is becoming a hard class to get a good grade in.

10th grader Marco L. says that “health class is becoming harder and harder. In past years, PE was thought of as a time to have fun, but now half of PE is theory: that can be pretty hard.” However, he also adds that “having more health isn’t a bad thing, I get to learn more about new things that I wouldn’t learn about otherwise.”

Sanshiro M. a 10th grader, says that he thinks that students are becoming frustrated with health class is because “there wasn’t enough work or expectations in health class in other years.” The increase in workload and the increase in classes have made health class seem arduous, and Sanshiro adds that “PE teachers expect more from us because it is the last year of PE so they expect more work with better quality.”

Maya T, who is new to AISG, says that health is useful at times and also includes the aspect of inter connectivity between areas of learning. “We get to include other subjects like science or art that we don’t usually get to work with in PE. This allows students who don’t excel in sports a chance to excel in other areas of PE.” She also states that health allows us to take a break from the physical activity of PE, “which can be tiring at times.”

However, Mr. Tomassen says that the increase in the amount of health classes in 10 grade is for the students’ own good and so that students know how to make healthy decisions. “People who are in 10 grade come across [the situations taught in health class] more often, and find themselves in riskier situations.” Additionally, he says that “there really isn’t a real influx in health class. It is just like middle school where half the block is health and the other half is PE, there’s just a little more increase in time [in health].”

Although many students have valid reasons as to why they are complaining about health class, Mr. Tomassen thinks that there really is no reason to complain about it. “[Health class] is an academic subject like all others,” explains Mr. Tomassen, “some students who come from other schools might not be used to it so they might not have the same understanding of what it looks like.” The content taught in health class can be carried on and used for the rest of your life. Mr. Tomassen thinks that health class is so important that “[he] wishes it would be carried to grades 11 and 12 because research has shown that [health class] can increase brain activity, which is good for a school like ours because we are so academically driven.”