ch. 8:A Safe and Healthy School Environment

Have you ever understood why the students
that played three sports a year was in the high level track? In this chapter Jackson
and Davis explain why a safe and healthy school environment is important and
how we can maintain one. Health and fitness can affect an adolescent’s learning
and that is just not health and fitness from the student but from the school
itself. Did your school offer a healthy meal? Did you have free time for
exercise? Was your P. E. class year round? Did you have recess in middle
school? These questions if answered yes to the majority than you indeed came
from a healthy environment and were taught to be healthy and fit. What about
safety? Did you fear bullying? Were you scared of a lockdown or shooting? Was
there graffiti on the walls? Did your teachers belittle you? If answered no to
these questions than you were in a safe environment as well. Finding a balance
between safety and healthy is difficult to reach so Jackson and Davis help teachers
evaluate themselves by listing out standards for a healthy learning
environment, classroom management and discipline, promoting positive
interethnic and interracial relations, peer mediation and health promoting. The
two sections that hit me the hardest were the interethnic and interracial
relations and peer mediation because a lot of it has to do with the students
themselves. I love the idea of having students
mediate with each other to help solve their own problems because it tends to
allow them to take ownership and build confidence levels in themselves and
trust with those around them. Overall, this chapter will be a reference to me
when I have a classroom of myself.