Writing is a very interesting thing, it is most of the times the only way to appropriately and correctly convey thoughts to another person. For school age students it is frowned upon to question authority verbally so the only way they can express what they are saying is to write it down and hand it to another person. I do not know what this method is considered ok while verbally saying something is not. I have experienced this first hand, I did not agree with the teacher and I got in trouble for questioning the teacher verbally. Then I got the idea to write a letter and hand it to the teacher and the same exact point became valid and addressed in class. I do not know if by writing it down I became more educated and taken more serious or if my tone of voice is threatening, either way I have found many issues solved by the written word.
There are other ways that I have loved to write that are a more fun way to express myself, research papers. I have found that by writing research papers you can really tell someone how you feel in an educated way. My favorite research paper that I have written was on childhood obesity and charging parents with child abuse for having a minor that is extremely overweight. I have always felt strongly by this and actually found a court case in which the parents receive some kind of punishment for it in almost every state.
I will use writing assignments in both my health and PE classes. I want students to apply the principles and lessons they learn in these classes to their everyday life. This wil help further to empower the students to a brighter future. These writing assignments will include items like answering controversial topics, choosing between two hard things, how they will make smart choices, and how PE can hel their quality of life.
Yes, I do think that's interesting that writing seems to have more authority to people than verbal speech. In my mind, it's perfectly appropriate to assess students' knowledge orally (as in our class final) as well as through writing, but for some reason teachers really seem to discount the value of oral language.
ReplyDeleteBut, as you said, written language is important too. Writing can be a powerful reflective tool, which I think is especially important in health so students can use writing to come to clear decisions about their lifestyles.
Thanks for your great posting!
I think if you were to present your paper or other information about charging parents with child abuse for having obese children, you should show both sides. Genetics are a big contributing factor to obesity and parents cannot control their genetics. Parents cannot sometimes afford to feed their children healthy food so they have to go out to fast food. It may not always be the parents' fault for having obese children. I'm overweight because generations of my family were big people and it takes more work and effort than I have time to put in to fix. i think it might cause more problems than good to go after parents legally to change their health habits. You as a health teacher could make some positive changes in the students' lives.
ReplyDeleteI do not mean to offend at all and should of explained myself a little bit more. It was a 10 page essay with both sides equally represented. I wrote that essay of charging parents with child abuse specifically because of one kid, Alexander Draper. Alex was 550 at age 13 with congestive heart failure. He was not safe at all with his parents because she was not teaching him the necessary things to survive past 18. They stated that Alex would not live past 22 because of his extreme lifestyle. The state took him away and taught the mother how to live a better life nutritionally and how to exercise. The state then gave him back but nothing changed so the state took him away for good. This is a super extreme case. This is all I was doing, talking about the super extreme casses. Yes genetics play a big part of a persons body weight but with proper diet and exercise one can be successful. Another big thing is body image, people need to know what a healthy body image is. People might perceive themselves as morbid obese but that not always is the case.
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