Q&A
Integration of health skills into academic subjects
1:24:54
·
4 min
Council Member Eric Dinowitz inquires about the extent to which health skills are integrated into academic subjects and how the DOE is investing in this approach. The discussion reveals challenges and opportunities in incorporating health education across the curriculum.
- Dinowitz emphasizes the potential to incorporate health education in various academic subjects like math, science, and history
- DOE representatives acknowledge the importance of integrating health skills across disciplines but admit more intentional efforts are needed
- Examples of existing integration include social-emotional learning and food education
- The conversation highlights the need for more consistency and formal incorporation of health education into academic curricula and school quality assessments
Eric Dinowitz
1:24:54
Okay.
1:24:54
Interested to learn exactly what those additional resources are and look like.
1:24:58
And lastly, you had spoken in your testimony about health teachers.
1:25:04
To what extent are these health skills required by the DOE, not again, not because a school chooses to, To what extent are these health skills integrated into the curriculum and encouraged to be taught by academic teachers, and to what extent are they trained, and, of course, to what extent are they measured on it, assessed are the students assessed on it in academic classes?
Narrator in Shown Video
1:25:30
I mean, I can just, hand it to you, Farzun, but I I think I could not agree more with you about the importance of it being an academic subject.
1:25:37
Right?
1:25:37
That is, I think, a big misperception that we're often trying to overcome is is folks not realizing that it has standards.
1:25:44
There are state standards.
1:25:45
There are national standards.
1:25:46
There is a New York City scope and sequence that includes what standards all health education classes are supposed to meet.
1:25:52
So that that is that is in place, and and that includes unit assessments, right, that the teacher would administer.
Eric Dinowitz
1:25:58
What I what I mean specifically is in a math class, kids are dealing with a ton of stress.
1:26:03
I know Right.
Despina Zaharakis
1:26:04
Because
Eric Dinowitz
1:26:04
I taught.
1:26:04
In a science class, you're dealing with the biology of the human body, and those are just two examples.
1:26:09
You spoke about the history of the LGBTQ movement.
Narrator in Shown Video
1:26:12
You're Yeah.
Eric Dinowitz
1:26:12
In every academic subject, health could be incorporated.
1:26:15
I'm asking to what extent the DOE is investing in that movement to do that?
Despina Zaharakis
1:26:24
So good question.
1:26:26
Thank you.
Eric Dinowitz
1:26:28
It's my last one too, chair.
1:26:29
Don't worry.
Despina Zaharakis
1:26:31
So I think, I wanted I want to take that question and really sort of think about it in terms of, you know, what we are doing.
1:26:41
Because sometimes I think what we're thinking about is what happens at the local school level, and how do we know about it?
1:26:48
Right?
1:26:48
So, you know, like, for example, you asked about assessment.
1:26:52
And I know that the curriculum that we recommend also has unit assessments.
1:26:58
So we test kids' mastery.
1:27:00
The teacher tests the kids' mastery, and the teacher understands the kids' mastery.
1:27:04
We don't know it.
1:27:06
So that that leap, right, that what stays at the school level and what do we capture, I think, is a bigger question, you know, and not just for health education, but for all.
Eric Dinowitz
1:27:19
And then my question about incorporating the health education into the typical academic subjects, to what extent is that being done?
Despina Zaharakis
1:27:27
So I would say we both agree that that's something that we see health education is about skills, and so those skills are transferable.
1:27:37
Right?
1:27:37
It's not just about the content.
1:27:40
So I think that we could do more to be more intentional about that with other sort of content areas.
1:27:47
I know that, you know, we need to develop some structures and some trainings, probably sort of, you know, I'd love to think about how we could pilot, you know, a particular school or a particular district that would have this sort of joint training.
1:28:07
But that's a really good idea.
1:28:09
I always you know, we have we have that in social studies and ELA.
1:28:13
We have that in other we have that in the arts and content areas.
1:28:18
So I'd love to be able to think about what this could look like in health.
Narrator in Shown Video
1:28:22
And I think 2 places where that already lives is social emotional learning.
1:28:25
Right?
1:28:25
So many of the skills that are SEL skills are also health education skills, and so that's an area where I think we have seen a huge movement to get those skills into many different classes.
1:28:37
And then another area is in the area of, if I think of a specific topic, food education.
1:28:44
Right?
1:28:45
That's another place where we're looking at how can that be done cross disciplinary, interdisciplinarily.
1:28:50
So I think I think there's room to expand on that.
1:28:52
I think it's happening in some places.
Eric Dinowitz
1:28:55
Yeah.
1:28:55
It just seems that there needs to be more consistency.
1:28:57
You have a a a really important job.
1:29:01
Until schools and districts are measured and assessed on the impact of this and until it's truly incorporated into our academic curriculum and it's reported on on our school quality review and school report cards, I don't think we're gonna see much movement.
1:29:15
Chairs, thank you so much, for the time.
1:29:17
Thank you for your testimony.
