Teaching Health Class

schoolnurse1001--thank you; it's helpful to hear your experience!

bergren--that's a lot of questions! Forgive me if you were just being Socratic; I'll answer them here in case:

There are anywhere from 20-25 kids in each class.

The class follows the school-wide standardized discipline program,which means they get "checks" for talking over the teacher(s), side conversations, getting out of their seats inappropriately, throwing things, laying hands on each other (roughhousing/fighting), using racial/ethnic/sex/gender slurs, jumping on the furniture, sucking teeth, stealing, chewing gum, eating, and dancing during class. Not always stuff I care about personally, but the school wants consistency across classes. The things I personally run into a lot are noisy side conversations, name calling, noises, and verbal and physical fights. It's an integrated class with a number of students with ADD/HD, a few with bipolar and a few with autism--that I know of; there's no list circulated.

I teach the class for the whole session, which is part of an "enrichment" block, three days a week with a different group of students each day.

The teacher generally circulates through the room, giving out checks or referring especially unruly students either to a "reflection corner" where they write a reflection, or to student support. I think it is a bit much for him. All classes are taught by two teachers; this is the only one without two "official" teachers.

The kids want to learn about sex, and I'm using the King's County FLASH curriculum,which addresses it as the core (but not the only focus) of the curriculum. I like the curriculum a lot, and so do 2 of my 4 classes. A good example is the module on "touch" -- it covers abstinence, but also touch as a basic human need and what happens when we don't get good touch (hugs from friends, parents), or when we get touch we don't want (violence, sexual harassment, etc). Every module has about 10 total minutes of lecturing, 10-15 minutes of discussion, and a written and/or hands-on activity for the rest of class. I haven't done any competitive games yet, though; I'll try to think some up! Thanks for your guidance.