Comparison

The two issues represented in the media; weight problems in schools aged children and bullying in schools, are tackled through a number of different curriculum areas presented within the Tasmanian Health and Wellbeing Curriculum documents. The concepts within the curriculum documents themselves are broad and cover many different aspects of health and wellbeing such as nutrition, active lifestyle and relationships. This allows for a unique and individualised learning experience, but is the performance criteria itself that makes the learning more focused. For example, a student who is working at standard to, stage six is expected to "be aware of recommendations to healthy eating" (The Tasmanian Department of Education, 2012, p.42). It then gives an example of a learning opportunity to help students achieve this. What I like about this document is it focuses on the positives rather than the negatives and looks at all the different aspects that surround an issue. For example instead of just looking at weight as an issues, it focuses on the benefits of eating healthy food, the importance of an active lifestyle the different elements that help keep your body healthy. Clearly, the media and The Tasmanian Department of Education are aligned with their thinking of what should be taught in regards to Health and Wellbeing in schools and both my articles and the curriculum documents represent this. For example, The Tasmanian Department of Education (2012) clearly acknowledge that because of a ‘significant shift in recent years from an emphasis on physical aspects of lifestyle to broader ideas that include a person’s social, mental and emotional wellbeing’ (p. 5) the curriculum documents have been updated and rewritten to reflect this. Reports in the media, such as ones I present in my paper about bullying and health have placed pressure on governments and schools to change the way in which these issues are approached within schools. As represented in a number of my articles, the media is particularly focused on the issue of cyber bullying, which reflects the position that society now finds itself in in regards to new digital literacies. The Tasmanian curriculum documents have briefly acknowledged this stating that “the way many people live in the twenty-first century is influenced by continuous and rapid change. This is characterised by new technologies, increased consumerism and changing communities, environments and values” (p. 6). With changes in technology and digital literacies and the issues, such as bullying that goes hand in hand with these advances, governments, schools and curriculum documents are going to have to be even more specific in the way that these issues are dealt with and taught about within schools. With statements in the curriculum document, such as “The National Safe Schools Framework commits all schools in Australia to establishing safe and inclusive environments promoting care, respect and diversity” (p. 7) the issues surrounding bullying and cyber bullying are covered, but in a board sense. With situations like the one reported on in Late line, (2012, Appendix 11) schools are going to have to be more specific about how these issues are addressed, dealt with and even taught at school and within the classroom. The area of health and nutrition are well represented in the Tasmanian curriculum documents and provide a very thorough outline of what is too be taught and covered in schools and classrooms. With the inclusion of sample learning opportunities and examples of assessments within the document, it even serves as a teaching guide to help teachers create learning experiences for their students and also assessment opportunities. This is clearly in contrast to the media articles represented in my paper, most of which say that schools are not doing enough in the areas of health and wellbeing teaching and learning. It appears as though the media need to blame someone when things go wrong and in many cases schools seem to be placed with the blame. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it means that the media and in turn the government will place pressure on schools to make sure that their curriculum documents and their stance on current health and wellbeing issues are up to date and being addressed in schools and classrooms in appropriate and contemporary ways. It also means that schools will need to adapt and change their teaching and learning priorities to fit with these arising issues. Hopefully, this will also place pressure on the community and other people of interest in students’ lives, such as their parents and other role models to think about their role in the education of others in regards to health and wellbeing. Surely it is not just the responsibility of schools.

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