| Health Ed. not healthy for students - only adds work (5/07) | | Print | |
| Written by Camille Smyth and Ana Billingsley | ||
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Many students feel that required courses are a waste of time, but College and Career and Health Ed consistently top the list.
“Health Ed is a class that you don’t do anything in, you just learn what you already know, and it’s like —why am I here?” sophomore Lily Kurkijan said. While these courses have interesting and potentially useful information, the way they are taught makes them tedious and unproductive. By treating these courses as academic classes they add more stress than knowledge to students’ lives. Lowell's health textbook, Holt Health by Jerrold Greenberg, Ed.D. and Robert Gold, Ph.D. encourages getting at least 9.25 hours of sleep per night and exercising daily in an effort to lead a stress-free lifestyle. However, the heavy workload for this class makes this nearly impossible. Current health classes require detailed outlining of chapters, weekly tests and viewing outdated films. “Health is not a concept that can be grasped from bookwork alone,” said sophomore Dyne Suh. “With mere memorization of facts, information sticks temporarily then slips away.”
The structure of Health Ed fails to interest students, therefore making it less likely that they’ll be able to apply the lessons learned in the class. The manner in which Health Ed is taught at Lowell contradicts what it encourages. Just like Health Ed, College and Career lacks interactive activities. “I think it would be more helpful if we went on fieldtrips to places where we might want to work,” sophomore Aaron Whitlatch said. For senior Jackie Lum, College and Career only took up space in her busy schedule. “I would rather take a class relating to my major or a class that interests me,” Lum said. Since this class is necessary to graduate, sometimes second semester students who have already applied to – and gotten accepted to – college take College and Career. Senior Miriam Feller is currently taking the class because it never fit in her hectic seven-class schedule before. “The information is kind of pointless to me now,” she said. An on-line alternative for both should be made available to solve this problem. Although this would not include hands-on activities, it could be beneficial to students with busy schedules. According to the School’s Course Offerings and Prerequisites document, students may not take Health Ed or College and Career online simply because it isn’t offered. However, it would be worth the effort for the administration to investigate how to create these on-line courses. It would be nice if after a long day of classes, your health homework would be to cook up some broccoli and eat it. It would be nice if you could spend a day shadowing someone doing your dream career. But for now it seems that students just need to fulfill the requirements, whether they use the information or not. |
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to listen.
