Chapter V: Health and Physical Education

Abstract

THE COMPLEXITY OF HEALTH INSTRUCTION is being increasingly recog nized. The field of health instruction involves curriculum construction; methods of teaching that will insure the functioning of essential health information in the lives of children; the use of the health examination and, in fact, the entire school program, as opportunities for giving information and for developing good habits and attitudes; the use of community agencies for promoting the health of school children; and the preparation of administrators, teachers, and specialists for their task of health educa tion. Emphasis on the integration of school health instruction with other aspects of school and community life appears to be the chief contribution of the literature of the period between July 1, 1934, and July 1, 1937.Knowledge, skills, and technics in the field of health education are still incomplete and defective. This is due in part to the preoccupation of school and health administrators with other matters, to the lack of integration of health education with general education and psychology, and to the dispersion of responsibility among many groups-teachers, physicians, nurses, health officers, and others (353). A few significant researches, however, on the measurement of health and physical education, the rela tionship between health and other factors, the selection of essential health facts, and the methods of teaching health, have been reported during the period under review.