School Health

Comprehensive School Health Education (CSHE) includes curriculum, instruction and assessment that is sequential from kindergarten through high school and that meets the health education standards outlined in the Maine Learning Results. CSHE addresses physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects of health, and provides knowledge and skills that promote and enhance lifelong healthy behaviors.

Rationale

CSHE motivates and enables students to maintain and improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors.

Health education gives the students the knowledge and skills to thrive physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. This knowledge helps students meet the challenges of growing up. It helps students to recognize the causes of ill health and to understand the benefits of prevention, good hygiene, and appropriate medical care. Through health education, students become aware of the dimensions of good health: physical soundness and vigor; mental alertness and ability to concentrate; expressing emotions in a healthy way; resiliency; and positive relations with family and peers. Health education also includes a set of skills to help students be better consumers of information, to manage stress and conflict, and to make better decisions in the face of conflicting messages, thus assisting them to live healthier lives.*

*Coordinating School Health Programs, 2002