With much ongoing research, I have been gathering material for a couple essays or articles. So far I have a rough draft of an essay about the book It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris. The piece deals with the issue of what information is age appropriate for children. I am working on another essay exploring health classes in Vermont. This essay has been more difficult to come by because it involves more research that is more difficult to get. I sat in on a class with Meaghan on November 7th and I plan to do it again, perhaps sitting in on the other health class taught by Pete.
For the essay about health classes in Vermont I have taken notes on, not just the content that Meaghan covered but how she taught it. For example, Meaghan prompted the students with the topic of their perception of the movie “Fed Up” and directs them to, “Have a dialogue about this.” Conducting her class with a discussion based curriculum, rather than feeding information. When talking about body image, which was the topic that day, and all things health, I believe it is essential to encourage all students to speak for themselves as to make that connection for themselves. In fact, Meaghan made her own connection by referencing her four-year-old son who is already showing signs that he is self conscious about his size. By being open to talk about herself and by using personal examples, Meaghan is encouraging students to also be open in her classroom -- which is something that does not exist everywhere. I have also emailed local Vermont high school health teachers at Montpelier, Spaulding, Harwood, Twinfield, Williamstown, and Cabot. So far I have received responses from Lisa Page at Williamstown, Brian Moody at Harwood, and Deborah Gonyaw at Twinfield. They have given me a brief description of their curriculum, offering their services if I had more questions. Lisa Page even sent me a syllabus as for her class. I want to look into the possibilities of sitting in on a health class at other schools in the area. I am not sure of the reality of this possibility.
The difficulty with this project is that it there are a lot of factors influencing the way health classes look and how they run, such as the teacher, the size of the school, the policies the school has, and the resources they have. I am trying to determine what these health classes are like from the students’ and teachers’ point of view. The best way to do this is witnessing a class myself and talking to students and teachers. I plan to make a survey and a list of students at Vermont schools that I can send my questions to, asking them how they feel about their health education. With this information I would have enough material to build an essay from.
As for the essay about the book It’s Perfectly Normal, currently titled “Is what’s Perfectly Normal Perfectly Appropriate?”, is going well. I planned to have a draft finalized by my exhibition time, however I soon learned that that is an unrealistic time frame. I will have a final draft finished by the end of the semester. The difficulty with this essay has been establishing how I want to present the information I have. I have decided that my audience is other students. My goal is to get this essay in the Chronicle and hopefully in a classroom.
The material from this essay about It’s Perfectly Normal has come from the the book itself and from other sources online (podcasts, articles, statistics). This type of research has been easier because I am taking information from people who have already been versed in talking about health education for kids. Whereas, for the other essay about health classes in Vermont, I am putting together the information mostly on my own. I am optimistic about these studies. Even though they are going slowly, I am making steady progress. I will continue to edit my It’s Perfectly Normal essay and pursue more research in the form of creating and distributing a survey and contacting health teachers for my essay about health classes in Vermont.