SRU professor explains differences between health/physical education and wellness education

SRU professor explains differences between health/physical education and wellness education

Students playing sports

Slippery Rock University is transforming the way educators method overall health and actual physical schooling with a new product identified as wellness training.

Feb. 10, 2022

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. — Gymnasium course has been dismissed and there is a new way for instructing well being and bodily schooling that is now in session. It is identified as wellness training, and for the previous ten years, Slippery Rock University has been shifting the way K-12 educators tactic what has been typically known as phys ed, P.E. or fitness center course.

So, what is the variance concerning wellbeing and actual physical training and wellness education and learning?

“The previous design of wellbeing and actual physical instruction is geared all over sporting activities and game titles, and answering the query: ‘What are we likely to do these days?,'” explained Randy Nichols, SRU professor of physical and wellbeing schooling. “The new model is about ‘What are we going to master now?,’ and the mastering is centered close to self-care and nicely-becoming. The new design is a great deal extra independently dependent with customized understanding, whereas the previous product was about teams and groups playing a sport. The target is to give college students the self-assurance and expertise to consider treatment of on their own and to be engaged in their well-becoming.”

Nichols

   NICHOLS

The Pennsylvania Department of Education describes overall health and bodily training as giving “students with the awareness and capabilities that will help them to obtain and preserve a bodily energetic and healthful lifestyle, not only in the course of their time in university but for a lifetime.”

There are similarities between the two concepts. The new model emphasizes “properly-getting,” which refers to the holistic dimensions of an individual’s existence that is perfectly-lived, and “wellness,” which broadly describes a healthy way of living. Physical exercise is just a person of lots of components of a wellness training.

The exercise, nonetheless, is typically how the two types diverge.

“There’s a change between being a wellness educator and a gym teacher, and we need so significantly far more wellness instruction in faculties now as a substitute of owning children taking part in dodgeball, matball or what ever occupies class time,” Nichols claimed. “We require to educate them how to try to eat much better or how to control their pressure and stress and anxiety — individuals are all part of wellness schooling.”

In accordance to Nichols, there are six parts to a wellness education curriculum:

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  • Actual physical action.
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  • Nutrition.
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  • Safety and injury prevention.
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  • Social and psychological wellness.
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  • The human entire body and the human body reaction.
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  • Well being-connected health.
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SRU initially instituted this product in 2014 when physical and overall health education and learning undergraduate students were being offered a concentration in university wellness training. In fall 2021, SRU revamped its adapted bodily exercise graduate system and started supplying a Grasp of Science in Lifelong Wellness through Innovative Leadership in which students can opt for concerning two concentrations: tailored physical activity and the lately included college wellness instruction.

The SWE graduate method is offered absolutely on the net and is geared towards furnishing practicing lecturers and directors tactics for transitioning from a common wellbeing and physical education design to a university wellness education and learning product. It is also excellent for teachers needing Level II certification, which demands educators in Pennsylvania who have been instructing for 6 a long time to get hold of 24 write-up-baccalaureate credits.

Lots of university districts are adopting SRU’s wellness education model, which includes Deer Lakes and North Allegheny University Districts, to name a number of.

“Administrators at general public faculties are recognizing the worth and the impression of switching to the wellness instruction model and lecturers are acquiring additional goal and relevance in their professions,” Nichols stated. “Lots of general public universities have inquired about retraining their academics, or they have instructors who were skilled by our college throughout the past number of decades.”

Also, the wellness training product and the target on the total-baby solution to health and bodily training align with current initiatives from the Modern society of Health and fitness and Physical Educators, acknowledged as Form The us, and the Facilities for Disorder and Prevention.

“We’re self-confident that this product is here to stay and that is why this SWE concentration will have a lasting effects on planning the subsequent technology of wellness lecturers,” Nichols reported.

Much more data about SRU’s lifelong wellness via innovative leadership program and the SWE graduate application is readily available on the University’s internet site.

MEDIA Get in touch with: Justin Zackal | 724.738.4854  | [email protected]

Three College Admissions Tips For Students With Learning Differences

Three College Admissions Tips For Students With Learning Differences

About 20{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of undergraduate college students in the United States described getting a incapacity*, including diagnoses this sort of as autism spectrum dysfunction, ADHD, and dyslexia. I spoke with Dr. Eric Endlich, a psychologist and founder of Prime Higher education Consultants, to generate a few school admissions suggestions for students with discovering differences.

Evaluate Your College or university Readiness

In buy to do well in college or university and acquire total advantage of postgraduate possibilities, you have to have to know if you are ready to attend higher education. In addition to tutorial readiness, it is necessary to consider what lifestyle competencies you may possibly have to have to create ahead of higher education and to “close the gap” this kind of as taking care of revenue, holding your possessions organized, and obtaining to class on time.

The resource Are You All set for College or university?, which covers the discovering domains of self-awareness, self-advocacy, and self-administration, allows college students and mother and father to consider where gaps are presenting and to make a program to proper them. In addition to having this evaluation, make certain to consult with with experts on your treatment staff, these kinds of as therapeutic providers and academic consultants, to give you an trustworthy choose on your child’s university readiness.

Locate Inclusive School Environments

One particular of the most recurrent concerns that Dr. Endlich and I get is the question of whether or not to disclose your prognosis when making use of to university. “The significant photo is that there’s no motive to think it’s heading to move the needle positively or negatively in receiving admitted… the most important purpose you want to disclose is if some thing on your software wants explanation,” stated Endlich. My suggestion is to disclose if you are comfy carrying out so given that your diagnosis may perhaps be a core portion of your personalized narrative. Sharing your story can provide insight into your lived encounter and how you have get over adversity. By disclosing, you know you will not be keeping any portion of by yourself back again on your higher education software.

Although self-disclosure can be 1 exam of whether the higher education is inclusive, just before you use, it is crucial to evaluate how accommodating personal colleges can be as very well as what variety of accommodations would most reward you. On Dr. Endlich’s web-site, there is a absolutely free directory of finding out assist packages at individual colleges. Evaluating the out there accommodations on campus is an very important part of your college lookup. Make confident that you access out to disability providers offices at personal faculties, said Endlich, as perfectly as any other campus methods (for illustration, cultural or tutorial) that may possibly fascination you. The knowledge of connecting with faculties instantly will support you to assess whether a fitting campus setting will be current.

Accessibility Distinctive Funding

In my prior Forbes write-up, I referenced medically-based mostly economic assist as one sort of fiscal guidance for learners with discovering disabilities and continual health and fitness conditions. With a qualifying analysis, a lot of U.S. states set aside postsecondary funding for pupils with studying disabilities. Attain out to your state’s place of work of vocation and rehabilitation in order to obtain out what kinds of postsecondary funding are obtainable for college students with learning variances. If you are going by means of the college application process now or will be some several years into the upcoming, it is handy to obtain out what clinical or academic documentation is required in buy to qualify. While you will have to jump by a different hoop linked to your higher education software approach, qualifying for just one of these point out-primarily based plans can be a worthwhile expenditure of time.

Given that students with disabilities are likely to persist in faculty at lessen fees and tend to have issues with attaining work compared to nondisabled peers, it is vital for students to opt for the appropriate faculty and obtain the suitable guidance to increase their achievements.

* The conditions “learning differences” and “learning disabilities” in this article are applied interchangeably. The term “difference” may well be substituted for the term “disability” in health-related or instructional communities as determination for giving lodging and supports. People today who determine with 1 of these diagnoses could substitute or insert the term neurodivergent to self-explain.

Greenwich’s Eagle Hill School announces new leader in educating students with learning differences

Greenwich’s Eagle Hill School announces new leader in educating students with learning differences

GREENWICH — A Greenwich native has been hired as the new head of school at Eagle Hill School, a private school in town that specializes in educating children with learning differences.

The Board of Trustees made the announcement Thursday that Gretchen Larkin will be the fifth permanent head of school. Larkin will succeed Interim Head of School Jim Heus on July 1, 2023.

The announcement came after an extensive search that involved reviewing many highly qualified candidates from schools throughout the United States in partnership with search consultants at RG175, Eagle Hill said in a statement.

“While visiting our campus, Gretchen demonstrated that she is a dynamic and engaging leader,” said Patty Murphy, chair of Eagle Hill’s Board of Trustees. “Her personal and professional experiences, as well as the time spent with members of our community, confirm her passion for the mission of Eagle Hill School. The Board is looking forward to working with Gretchen to build on Eagle Hill’s reputation as a national leader in LD education.”

Larkin, a graduate of Greenwich Academy, said she is excited to return to her hometown with her husband, Bill, a native of Darien.

“I cannot remember a time that I have been as excited as I am at this moment — being named Eagle Hill School’s fifth head of school is a dream come true,” she said in a statement. “The future is bright for this amazing school that quite literally transforms the lives of children and their families.”

She will begin in the job in July 2023, and in a statement, Eagle Hill said, “a long lead time for leadership change at independent schools is becoming more common.”


“Given the issues schools are facing with COVID, having a full school year to transition allows both schools to prepare their constituents and plan accordingly for the change, resulting in a smooth transition from one institution to another,” the statement said.

Larkin is now in her eighth year of serving as the head of school at Charles River School, a PK-8 school in Dover, Mass. As the leader there, she created a new multi-age model for delivering early childhood education, oversaw a comprehensive strategic plan, increased enrollment, reduced attrition and led a record-breaking capital campaign, according to the statement from Eagle Hill.

Before that, Larkin served in a variety of roles at independent schools in greater Boston, as well as teaching positions at Brunswick School in Greenwich and Windward School in White Plains, N.Y. At the beginning of her teaching career, Larkin served as a second-grade co-teacher at Brunswick as part of her graduate school field work in 1998.