PO Box 57
Claremont 6910
Phone (08) 9383 7708
Fax (08) 9387 8018
Email info@achperwa.asn.au
Web www.achperwa.asn.au
ABN 93 522 017 503
PHYSICAL EDUCATION WEEK DISCUSSION TOPIC:
I think a strengths-based curriculum for HPE is (should be) ….
Teacher 1:
I think a strengths-based curriculum takes a positivist position of a learner. It recognises
they bring a wide range of individualised skills, competencies experiences to the HPE
curriculum in situ. It also acknowledges that contexts vary i.e. Personal and community
resources.
It implies that all students have the possibility to nurture their own and others health, well
being, movement competencies and participation in physical activity.
However it doesn't acknowledge the possibility that these contexts could be detrimental to
the possibility of maximising learning within the HPE curriculum and taking account of these
can be a positive learning experience also e.g. What are the risks of……
Teacher 2:
A Strengths-based curriculum considers:







what kids can do
want kids want to learn
school location
available resources
established community links
teacher expertise
established school culture
Teacher 3:
In Australia most children and young people are healthy. Most will grow up to be aged and
most will live in homes where they are fed, and looked after. Most will have strengths and
resources that have been nurtured through living in strong, connected, healthy and safe
families and communities. Given this, teaching HPE in Australian schools is not necessarily
about educating children to become healthy because they are healthy, it is about providing
them with lots of teaching and learning opportunities to become healthier and to build on
their strengths.
In the past we have taught children in HPE through context-based education, through units
of work such as: Alcohol and Drugs, Athletics, Basketball and Contraception. The underlying
philosophy to context-based education was that it was better to expose and prepare children
and young people for these contexts, than not. The problem in doing this is that some
children will never experience the contexts to which they were taught or they will never
participate in the context again outside of the school environment. I learnt at school about
heroin but have never found myself to be in a circumstance where heroin was on offer.
However, I have been in many situations where I have needed the strength and resilience to
say no. Also as an immigrant, I learnt Athletics for every year that I was educated in an
Australian school and yet, other than as teacher of HPE, I have no interest in the sport of
Athletics and would not pursue it for lifelong physical activity.
In addition context-based education purports itself as being preventive education but in
effect it is still a form of reactive education that sometimes focuses too much on the
negative and destructive elements of certain lifestyles. Through context-based education
teachers construct learning environments or learning contexts to which children and young
people are faced with a particular problem, dilemma or risk. For example, “Let us teach
children about Diabetes to prevent Diabetes because lots of Australian children will be
Diabetics in later life.” This may be true, however, “Let us provide education for the children
that focuses on the skills to choose any healthier option so that they can live to be 100 and
have an illness free life that excludes Diabetes.”This shift in the learning paradigm does not
mean that the knowledge about Diabetes is redundant it just means that being healthy and
healthier is more important. To illustrate this point further, I remember when as a teacher I
endeavoured to prevent children from smoking tobacco and I taught them about all the
awful things that tobacco does to the body. I never once focussed on all the wonderful things
that they could achieve from having a tobacco free life.
Thus, in using a strengths-based approach to HPE it is important to remember that there is
still value to the ideals of context-based education but rather than focussing on the context
alone, focus more on the strengths, skills and capacities that children and young people need
to promote, enhance and enrich their own and others’ health. For example, teaching children
the skill to say no safely and positively across many contexts covers the huge range of
environments that most children rather than a select few will experience. Finally, a
strengths-based approach in schools is about appraising your school community and
deciding what the children and young people need to be healthier and to support them to
build upon theirs and others’ strengths to lead healthful, physically active lives.
Teacher 4:
What’s in a name?
I am going to focus on a strengths based approach to Health Education. I think to a certain
extent this is what we have always done. Acknowledge that most young people are generally
healthy and asking what do they need to do to stay healthy. But is this enough or do we also
need to incorporate the risk based model (prevention approach)?
I believe heath education is about enabling young people to discover how to make safe or
safer health enhancing decisions. A strengths based approach suggests that young people
are already making healthy decisions regarding their health behaviours and although this
may be true at any one time, there are those in our classrooms who may be considering
unsafe behaviours and those who are already engaging in risky behaviours. To ignore these
young people albeit perhaps in the minority would make our classrooms exclusive,
judgemental and ignoring the needs of those most at risk. The proportion of young people in
these at risk categories also change according to age, context (alcohol Vs illicit drug use;
food choice – primary vs secondary) and location (metropolitan Vs rural remote).
Furthermore how do we predict which ones (1 in 4 mental health problem) will be in the at
risk categories? In addition just because most may not be engaging in a behaviour that puts
them at risk does not meant they won’t witness someone else engaging in that behaviour or
be harmed by someone else’s risky behaviour. Adding further complexity, friends often know
more about the health behaviours of their peers than parents, teachers, administrators and
researchers. Therefore all young people need to know how to recognise someone at risk,
predict risky situation, identify ways to keep themselves and others safe and where and how
to access help. Suggesting we only follow a strengths based approach may be
oversimplifying complex behaviours.
So what does this mean for teachers of health education? Clearly it is about acknowledging
that most young people (depending on age, context and location) are engaging in healthy
behaviours and encouraging them to maintain these decisions by emphasising this is the
norm for their specific age groups; by encouraging those considering risky behaviours to
delay that decision and by supporting those already engaging in risky behaviours to make
safer decisions. This involves what I believe we have always done in health education;
providing accurate, balanced, useful knowledge including the benefits of safe/safer health
behaviours; problem prediction; ways to stay safer and help seeking. Some may call this a
harm minimisation approach but it works for all contexts and has at its core the
acknowledgement that the safest/ healthiest thing to do is not to engage in risky behaviours
but if young people are putting their health at risk there are things they can do to be safer.
In doing this we are being inclusive of all students.
So a harm minimisation approach, a risk based model, a strengths based approach; what’s in
a name; as long as we advocate for health to be taught from an evidence based perspective
by those trained in health education methods and we are provided with adequate time on
the timetable to maximise the potential for ALL young people to make safe or safer health
enhancing decisions.
A concern I have is that a strengths based approach might be misinterpreted by school
administration. For instance if the message is that all young people are healthy, it may
prompt the question: why do we need health education and trained health education
teachers? Can’t the message be reinforced in all other classes? This is when we need to look
to what the evidence says about maximising the potential for young people to stay healthy
and safe. Having trained health education teachers is consistently identified in the
prevention literature as a critical element in developing and maintaining these skills in young
people. To ignore this is like saying that most teachers know how to read and write therefore
why do we need trained English teachers – surely anyone could teach these skills?
Hence I believe a strengths based approach is not inconsistent with what we have been
doing in health education in the past but we must be careful not to assume a one rule fits all
perspective. Health behaviours do vary according to age, context and location and we must
continue to be guided by what the evidence tells us best increases the potential for all young
people to make safe decisions about their health.
Teacher 5