Let’s be honest: The education reform debates seem to have hit a wall. For years now, we’ve looked at our children, at their schools, at their teachers, and finally at each other and asked, “What can we do to improve the outcomes?” We’ve tinkered with funding, teacher salaries and assessment, accountability measures, and government programs in an effort to breathe life into an educational system that has consistently failed to live up to its potential.
With equal vigor, but a different set of methods, we advocate for children’s health. The movement against childhood obesity, diabetes, and malnutrition is alive and strong, but for some reason, the battle for children’s health takes place in a separate arena from the battle for education. Strangely, the two sectors seldom cross wires.
The reality is that even with the most talented teachers, the most strategic curricula, the best after-school programs, and the safest school environments, students cannot thrive if they are in poor physical health. In the absence of adequate nutrition and exercise for a healthy brain, body, and spirit, many resources dedicated to education go to waste.
Perhaps it’s time to change the conversation.
Fortunately, a new education framework is emerging—one that focuses on the rounded development of the child. Known as the “whole child” approach—developed and promoted by ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development), a global community dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching, and leading—it focuses attention on each student’s physical, social, emotional, and mental well being in conjunction with standard metrics of academic progress. The approach takes a broader look at the objectives of education and which factors play into an effective education.
This year ASCD, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), developed and released a new model aligning learning and health. The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model (WSCC) was developed to provide a coordinated approach to health and learning and seeks to align the health and education sectors - with the child at the center.
According to Wayne Giles of the CDC, this model does not promote health for education’s sake, nor does it promote education for health’s sake. Rather, it is a model that calls for education and health for the child’s sake. It holds that children cannot reach their full learning potential in school if poor health is holding them back.
The connection between good physical health and heightened academic achievement is a proven one. According to the CDC, students who participated in the USDA’s breakfast program—a federally-assisted meal program that schools may take part in to offer their students free or reduced-price breakfast—earned higher grades than their counterparts who do not participate. Other studies conducted by the CDC have shown that higher levels of physical activity and physical fitness are associated with improved cognitive function. Poor nutrition—a diet lacking adequate consumption of fruits, vegetables, and dairy—has also been associated with lower grades.
The link is undeniable: children who are physically healthy perform better in school.
While it awaits action at the congressional level, the whole child approach is rapidly spreading through the civil sector and gaining momentum on several platforms. A number of non-profit organizations are already engaging communities to take a stand for children at the crossroads of health and education.
- Girls on the Run, a non-profit organization founded by Molly Barker, teaches life skills to young girls through interactive lessons and running games.According to Barker, “For an individual to be fully engaged—performing at their fullest and most awesome capacity—we must give attention to the development of their emotional, physical, mental, and social selves. Creating space for children to thrive requires that their bodies have the space and freedom to explore, move, jump, and play just as well as their minds.”
- Scholars at KIPP DC LEAD Academy enthusiastically raised their hands for the chance to talk about the benefits of fruits and veggies with Revolution Foods' Chef Tawana. (Photo: Revolution Foods)
- Two mothers unsatisfied with their children’s low-quality school lunch options, Kristin Richmond and Kristen Tobey founded Revolution Foods—a fresh food company that delivers more than one million fresh, nutritious, hand-prepared meals to K-12 schools nationwide every week. And their nutrition education programs are aimed at empowering students to make smarter eating decisions. Their curriculum ranges from classroom instruction to off-campus, hands-on activities designed to encourage student interest and involvement in healthy eating.
- Louise Davis Langheier, founder of Peer Health Exchange, is using a peer-to-peer approach to encourage healthy habits in our nation’s youth. With a mission to give teenagers the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions, Peer Health Exchange trains college students to teach health education in public high schools that can’t afford such programs. So far they’ve reached over 96,000 public high school students.Says Langheier, “Teenagers who make healthy decisions now and in the future will be better positioned to stay and excel in school, join and remain part of the workforce, and become healthy adults equipped to pursue greater life opportunities.”
As these civil-sector organizations understand, children have a much better shot at excelling in school if their bodies are strong and healthy. Both the health and the education movements are hoping for the same outcome—healthy, happy, well-prepared adults—so why shouldn’t they join forces? We must remember that when we invest in our children’s health, we invest in their education, and when we invest in their education, we invest in the future of the country.
Jenna Hoffman was a summer 2014 intern for Ashoka's Empathy Initiative and a recent gradute of Brigham Young University.
