Health is a key part of the education system, integrated into curriculums for multiple grade levels nationwide. In MCPS, health is first introduced in fifth grade, before topics are expanded on one quarter per year of middle school. When students reach high school, they are required to take health for a full credit, two full semesters; a change from only one semester that was brought into effect with the current senior class, the class of 2025.
Supporters of the change see the extra time in health class as a huge win, as extra time in the health classroom could improve overall well-being of students. As the general health of the United States continues to decline, supporters see more time learning about these topics as an easy way to improve outcomes. With a food market dominated by highly processed, prepackaged junk and the lack of an “active” culture like in other countries, nearly 40% of Americans are classified as obese, including a staggering 20% of American adolescents, according to ETR.org. These supporters hope that spending more time learning about these facts will result in healthier choices being made by teens, resulting in improvement in these categories.
Additionally, having more health classes happening at one time results in more teachers being needed to teach the subject, creating jobs for physical and health education instructors. Without the increased quantity of classes, educators could be required to work only part-time or even at multiple schools. Requiring more health classes at every high school in the county creates new jobs, possibly stimulating the economy or encouraging young people to enter the sector.
While it is true that the national state of health is problematic, increasing health education in high school is not the way to combat this. Healthy eating habits can easily be fully explained in one semester, and bleeding into a second takes away a student’s opportunity to take another gym class that encourages exercise, something that would directly improve these students’ health. In addition, the second semester of health eliminates the opportunity to take any other class a student wanted to that semester, decreasing a student’s choices and class customization.
In reality, the jobs created by the surplus of health classes are minimal, and more commonly result in less-qualified teachers of other classes taking on sections of the subject. The biggest problem with the extra semester, however, is how repetitive it is. While MCPS has different topics listed for each semester, students have reported the class repeating itself, sparking disinterest in the content and an unnecessarily high amount of busy work.
Not only is the county overcompensating on the need for health education, but they are also missing a huge opportunity to add a required class on an incredibly important, under taught topic; financial literacy. With Yahoo Finance reporting that 57% of Americans can’t score a 50% on financial literacy tests, classes on credit and managing money are a need and would replace the unnecessary second semester well, creating the same number of jobs but proving much more useful for students.
