Introduction
Imagine there is a child in your classroom who just will not sit still. You try everything you know to engage him, but the child is repeatedly zoning out. In frustration, you say to the child, “What’s going on? What is wrong?” He responds by asking to use the bathroom, again. Reluctantly, you agree to allow him because he seems like a well behaved young man. It’s troubling that he was missing so much of instructional time going to the restroom. Rather than penalizing the student or attributing to his lack of interest you dig deep and find out it is due to an underlying medical condition. You would later discover the student suffered with both type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Had you not been as empathetic, the situation could have become critical. Rather than sincerely talking to the student, the normal reaction could have been scolding. As a result, the child would have felt more stress, his heart rate would have increased, as would his blood sugar. Adolescents with chronic disease such as this student, struggle with day-to-day challenges. The symptoms this child feels are silent killers because not all high blood pressure can be prevented and this child will live with this disease for the rest of his life. Furthermore, relying on the science textbook to teach and learn about this disease is useless. Our current textbooks do not adequately teach about preventive health. In addition, many parents feel ill-equipped to educate their children on issues of health because of their own lack of knowledge. The goal of this unit is to increase the students’ health knowledge and promote positive mental and healthy behaviors towards his/her well-being.
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