Student Perspective: Impact of Human Health’s Experiential Learning Program, Part 3

Photo by Ella Olsson on Unsplash

Editor’s Note: This piece is the third student essay about Human Health students’ experiences participating in Health 1, 2, 3’s classroom to community 4th level component. See here to learn more about this new program.

By: Patrick Crockett

The potential that lies in our nation’s youth is limitless, and all children deserve the utmost quality of education in all fields. Having the opportunity to partner with Graduation Generation and the 4th Level of the Health 1, 2, 3 program at King Middle School allowed me to realize such truths and give back to the greater Atlanta community through teaching eighth grade students the importance of health education as it pertains to general health, nutrition, and positive mental health. Considering the vast potential in middle school students to learn and acquire new knowledge on their health, and capitalize on such learnings throughout high school and college, health education is of vital importance in our public school system.

After attending an hour-long observation session of Coach John Lipkins teaching metabolic and nutritional health to a class of seventh grade boys last November, I saw such incredible energy amongst the students, and the atmosphere was electric. Students were engaged throughout class and were eager to offer thoughtful responses on the subject matter to contribute to their own learning and that of their classmates. Although there were a few instances in which students were overly active and distracted during class, Coach Lipkins harnessed their energy and brought them back to the focus of the lesson in a seamless manner that allowed for a highly productive class.

As I began teaching health lessons to a class of eighth grade boys after having completed two observations of Coach Lipkins, I realized that my team members–Kathryn Wright and Shaylan Hill–and I were a part of something really special. By having the opportunity to teach health lessons to middle school students, I knew I was in a powerful position to have a transformational impact on their education in the critical period of young adolescent development. Studies done by the National Education Association (NEA) have shown that adolescence is a vital period for brain growth that allows for the development of important intellectual processes as well as abstract thinking through enhancement in problem solving and deductive reasoning skills. Such hallmarks of the brain development cycle are invaluable in middle school health education, as “[a] middle school student can generally retain from 5 to 7 bits of information at one time…. The more engaged and ‘rich’ the new information, the more likely it is that the new information will be retained.”[1]

The experiences I had teaching the eighth grade boys allowed me to see this in real time, working through their enthusiasm to engage and learn more about ways to improve their health and quality of life as middle school students preparing for the major transition to high school. I believe my team and I really capitalized on such ideas of delivering “rich” information when we taught a nutrition class that involved students cooking different meals in the classroom with their assigned groups. We came up with four healthy recipes, those being for fruit smoothies, mini pizzas, black bean quesadillas, and strawberry creams. The students enjoyed cooking their assigned recipes with our team, and took ownership of the activity by paying close attention to the amounts of ingredients called for in the recipes, taste-testing their final products, and proudly presenting their nutritious creations to the class by describing how they made them and why they are healthy.

Before partnering with Graduation Generation and Health 1, 2, 3 at King Middle School, I was not aware of how dynamic and engaging the health education programs are in the Atlanta Public Schools. Having this opportunity to teach health through Graduation Generation has opened my eyes to the importance of health education in the public school system, and that there lies great potential within every student as well as in the health education programs to keep improving for years to come. The sky’s the limit!

Reference

1. NEA Reference: Lorain, Peter. “Brain Development in Young Adolescents -Good News for Middle School Teachers.” National Education Association, www.nea.org/tools/16653.htm. Accessed 16 Apr. 2020.