This week school started up in these parts. The yellow buses are out before first light and continue well into early evening. We put high hopes on the schools to achieve a lot of society’s goals; we freely blame schools and teachers when those goals are not met. One wonders how the relentless growth of information is assimilated into a school year whose length has been fixed for decades. What becomes of knowledge deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Among all the goals we want the schools to achieve this year is the quest for healthy children and adolescents. The rationale is that establishing good health early provides a basis for healthy adults. This becomes part of the framework of quality of life for individuals, progress and prosperity for society. Lofty vision this is, and one to which we’ve aspired for generations, starting early in the 20th century. There is also the belief, backed up by evidence, that some aspects of health are linked to learning. No Child Left Behind is put in jeopardy by many things, including poor health leading to diminished brain development, inability to concentrate and absenteeism.
And so in addition to the traditional PE and Basic Four Food Groups (now the Food Pyramid), we’ve had programs for drug free schools, alcohol free schools, tobacco free schools, violence free schools, and schools where only abstinence will be found. While none of these efforts have been a whopping success, we have built up a body of evidence; if best practice, as defined by evaluation research, was the guide in all these areas, we would be much further along toward Healthy People. However, this is America. There are no benevolent dictators to be seen. Consequently, the formation of school curriculum and policy is influenced by many voices and often conflicting values.
School health is compounded by the fact that kids don’t live in the school bubble, but encounter health influences in 3D, 24/7. Just like learning will be deficient in the absence of supportive families and community circumstances, it is hard for kids to form ideal health habits in many homes and neighborhoods. Every time kids pass billboards, convenience stores and fast food venues, it is a drive-by wilting of health valuing, subverting the positive influence of the school health program.
We can take some pride in knowing that things are getting better. We have learned some lessons, and though turning around the education enterprise is snail-pace slow, there are encouraging signs. For example, over the last 10 years, PE has been dwindling as schools have shifted instructional time to the critical accountability areas of standardized testing. More recently, we have recanted, partly in response to the obesity epidemic that has finally broken through to America’s radar screen. Not only are schools restoring PE and recess, but they are further demanding that PE time be exercise time, not standing around time, not locker room time. We are imposing rules for healthy school breakfasts and lunches, beginning to remove junk food vending, and putting limits on competitive foods, such as the band booster cake sale. These things are sound policy changes based on theory and research-based evidence. By themselves, still not enough.
We are still struggling to find ways to link schools with families with community institutions and leaders. There is every reason to expect that a united front, in which every segment of society is supportive of the same goals and strategies, putting equal value on the health of children, would bring about victory in school health promotion. However, that is truly an impossible dream. Society is too fractured with alternate value systems and opposing views. For most of the school health issues, constituents line up on various sides. It takes gifted leadership and some luck to bring enough support together on compromise positions to move the ball forward a few yards. I’m still waiting to see a Hail Mary touch down victory when it comes to child and adolescent health promotion, but we can take satisfaction in small victories, small progress none the less.
There is always next school year.
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