New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards

for

Comprehensive Health and Physical Education

INTRODUCTION

 No knowledge is more crucial than knowledge about health.  Without it, no other life goal can be successfully achieved.

                                                                                                                                         Ernest Boyer

The Vision

Schools have enormous potential for helping students develop the knowledge and skills they need to be healthy and to achieve academically.  As rapidly changing and evolving disciplines, health education and physical education must look and be different than the old “hygiene and gym class.”  Health education and physical education are separate disciplines each with a distinct body of knowledge and skills; however, the two disciplines clearly complement and reinforce each other to support “wellness”. 

Quality health education and physical education programs promote each student’s optimum physical, mental, emotional, and social development.  Effective programs are grounded in scientifically-based research and public health knowledge. They are student-centered and utilize multiple learning theories and models to support and promote health-enhancing behaviors.  As a result, students are empowered to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices. 

Quality programs provide cognitive content and learning experiences that support a variety of physical activity areas including basic movement skills; team, dual, and individual sports; physical fitness; rhythm and dance; and lifetime recreational activities.  These activities are linked to health concepts and skills, such as healthy eating, safety, and stress management.   Additionally, effective programs consider children’s changing capacities to move based on their developmental status, previous experiences, skill level, body size, body type, and age and are culturally, ethnically, and gender sensitive. 

Quality health education and physical education programs address and integrate the full range of categorical health problems and issues that impact the quality of life.  Unfortunately, quality classroom instruction is not enough.  School policies and procedures must support and reinforce classroom instruction.  Health messages must be clear and consistent.  Students must be given every opportunity to enact healthful behaviors--in the classroom, the gym or cafeteria, or on the playground. 

Quality programs incorporate the use of technology and encourage students to research and use valid and reliable sources of health information.  For example, using heart rate monitors makes aerobic exercise safer and more productive by helping the teacher and student individualize participation in physical activity. As a form of authentic assessment, this teaching tool enhances interdisciplinary technological instruction while allowing for a more objective estimation of a student’s effort and individual progress.  Students are able to set goals, monitor performance, and experience real gains in fitness status.

Quality programs are student-centered and interactive--that is, teachers encourage classroom discussion, research, modeling, and skill practice. Skilled health teachers address the social influences on behavior and strengthen individual and group norms that support health-enhancing behaviors (Marx, 1998).  Students discuss issues that have real application to their lives with assessments that are authentic and contextual. Teachers, well-versed in current health issues and resources, challenge students to take responsibility for their own health.  Providing information is not enough. Information must be coupled with skill development and practice in order to have any impact on behavior.  As a result, students are progressively prepared and empowered to use higher level thinking skills to address a myriad of wellness issues, now, and throughout their lifetime.

Rationale

Many of the health challenges that young people face today are different than those of past generations.  Advances in medicines and vaccines have largely addressed the illness, disability, and death that resulted from infectious disease.  Today, the health of young people and the adults that they will become is critically linked to the health-related behaviors they choose to adopt (CDC, June 28, 2002; CDC, School Health Programs, 2001).  For example:

· Chronic diseases account for 7 of every 10 U.S. deaths and for more than 60 percent of medical care expenditures.

· In the adult population, about two-thirds of all mortality and a great amount of morbidity, suffering, and rising health care costs result from three causes: heart disease, cancer, and stroke.  Tobacco use, unhealthful dietary patterns, and physical inactivity contribute to the incidence of these conditions (CDC, Risk Behaviors Overview, 2001). 

·  There are nearly twice as many overweight children and almost three times as many overweight adolescents as there were in 1980. 

·  Sixty percent of overweight 5-10 year old children already have at least one risk factor for heart disease (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2000).

·  Approximately two-thirds of all deaths among children and adolescents aged 5-19 years result from injury related causes: motor vehicle crashes, all other unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide (MMWR, December 7, 2001). 

·  A substantial portion of motor vehicle crashes involves the use of alcohol. 

·  Injuries requiring medical attention or resulting in restricted activity affect more than 20 million children and adolescents and cost $17 billion annually for medical treatment. 

·  Approximately 4 million students are injured at school each year and more than 1 million serious sport-related injuries occur annually to adolescents aged 10-17 (CDC Fact Sheet, December 2001).

·  Every year, nearly one-quarter of all new HIV and STD infections occur among our nation’s teenagers.  

·  While teen birth rates have declined substantially over the last ten years, teen pregnancy remains a significant health and educational issue.  Teenage childbearing is generally associated with educational, social, and economic consequences for the teenage mothers and for their children (Kirby, 1997).

 Clearly, not all health conditions are preventable. However, it is clear that interrelated and preventable behaviors established during youth and persisting into adulthood lead to serious health problems.  These behaviors contribute to many of the social and educational problems that confront our nation, including failure to complete high school, unemployment, and crime (CDC, 2001).  The health of our nation is a complex problem that calls for complex, collaborative, and multidisciplinary interventions.   Addressing this need, the New Jersey Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Standards are an educational response to a public health problem.

Revision of the Standards

New Jersey has a long-standing commitment to school health, safety, and physical education. N.J.S.A.18A:35, adopted in 1917, requires all pupils in grades 1-12 to participate in two and one-half hours per week of instruction in health, safety, and physical education.  In addition, there are a number of content-specific mandates including instruction on drugs, alcohol, tobacco, controlled dangerous substances and anabolic steroids (N.J.S.A. 18A:40); Lyme disease prevention (18A:35-5.1); breast self examination (18A:35-5.4); stress abstinence (18A:35-4.19); accident and fire prevention (18A:6-2); cancer awareness (18A:40-33); sexual assault prevention (18A:35-4.3); bullying prevention programs (18A:37-17); and domestic violence education (18A:35-4.23).  The Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Core Curriculum Content Standards focus on the health needs of students and attempt to reconcile the ever-increasing number of state mandates with evidence from public health research.

The State Board of Education first adopted the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education in 1996.  The New Jersey standards were developed after substantial review of two national documents: Moving Into the Future: National Standards for Physical Education (1995) and The National Health Education Standards: Achieving Health Literacy (1995).  Since that time, the Surgeon General of the United States released a landmark report, Physical Activity and Health (1996) that called upon schools to take a more active role in health promotion and disease prevention.  Acknowledging that childhood and adolescence may be pivotal times for preventing sedentary behavior among adults, the report recommended that schools make every effort to require daily physical education in each grade and to promote physical activities that can be enjoyed throughout life.  In December 2000, the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education published Promoting Better Health for Young People Through Physical Activity and Sports.  The report to the President reemphasized the need for quality health and physical education programs in our schools.  The report describes our nation’s young people as inactive, unfit, and increasingly overweight and explains how the increase in serious health problems, such as diabetes, is a direct result of inactivity and unhealthy eating patterns.

In a landmark national report, A Call to Action (2001) schools were identified as a key setting for public health strategies to prevent and decrease the prevalence of overweight and obesity.  The report called upon schools to offer age appropriate and culturally-sensitive health education programs that help students develop the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to adopt, maintain, and enjoy healthy eating habits and a physically active lifestyle.  The report emphasized that all schools should provide all children, from pre-kindergarten through grade 12, with quality daily physical education programs supplemented by daily recess for elementary students and extracurricular physical activity programs for older students.

The Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Standards Revision Panel examined these significant reports as well as health education and physical education standards from twenty other states.  They considered the thoughtful comments of a national consultant and spent hours looking at new research on effective programs as well as the impact of movement on health and academic success.  In addition, panel members looked at commercial curricula, textbooks, software, and on-line resources and considered feedback from teachers, curriculum specialists, healthcare specialists, and representatives from higher education and business.  Panel members reviewed the national public health agenda document Healthy People 2010 and looked at New Jersey’s companion public health document and health goals, as well as existing New Jersey public health data.

Standards and Strands

There are six comprehensive health and physical education standards, each of which has a number of lettered strands.  The strands are an organizational tool allowing teachers to locate specific content and skills.  Related cumulative progress indicators (CPIs) are clustered together at each grade level so that a teacher can easily identify what should be taught about a specific subset of health and physical education, such as movement skills, nutrition, or safety.   The knowledge and skills outlined in the revised standards are cumulative; that is, the progress indicators begin at a foundational or basic level and increase in complexity as the student matures, requiring more complex interaction with the content.  Since the indicators are cumulative, students at succeeding grade levels are responsible for the knowledge and skills taught in previous grade level clusters as well as that of their current grade.  Smaller grade level bands, increased specificity, and content strands allow teachers to focus on developmentally appropriate content and skills. 

The New Jersey Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Standards are essentially five “content” standards and one “integrated skills” standard.  Standard 2.2: Integrated Skills focuses on decision-making, goal setting, and effective communication in situations that impact health and safety.  The standard has been expanded to include character and leadership development, health careers and services, and health advocacy. All teachers should integrate the skills outlined in Standard 2.2 into every other health and physical education standard.  In addition, every health and physical education standard supports interdisciplinary instruction in one or more of the remaining eight content areas. 

The standards and strands for all students are delineated below:

                 2.1  Wellness

                              A.     Personal Health

B.     Growth and Development

C.     Nutrition

D.     Diseases and Health Conditions

E.      Safety

F.      Social and Emotional Health

2.2  Integrated Skills

A.     Communication

B.     Decision Making

C.     Planning and Goal Setting

D.     Character Development

E.      Leadership, Advocacy, and Service

F.      Health Services and Careers

                  2.3 Drugs and Medicines

A.     Medicines

B.     Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs

C.     Dependency/Addiction and Treatment

2.4  Human Relationships and Sexuality

A.     Relationships

B.     Sexuality

C.     Pregnancy and Parenting

2.5 Motor Skill Development

A.     Movement Skills

B.     Movement Concepts

C.     Strategy

D.     Rules, Safety, and Sportsmanship

E.      Sport Psychology

2.6 Fitness

A.     Fitness and Physical Activity

B.     Training

C.     Achieving and Assessing Fitness

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2000). Promoting better health for young people through physical activity and sports.  Atlanta, GA: Author.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  (2001, December).  Preventing unintentional injuries and violence: guidelines for school health programs. Atlanta: GA: Author.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  (2001).  Risk behaviors overview. Online:

            www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/risk.htm.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2001). School health programs: An investment in our schools. Online: www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/ataglanc.htm.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2001, December). Unintentional injuries, violence, and the health of young people: Fact sheet. Atlanta, GA: Author.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2002, June 28).  Surveillance Summaries.  MMWR 2002:51 (No.SS-4).  Atlanta, GA: Author.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2002). Physical activity and good nutrition: Essential elements to prevent chronic diseases and obesity. Atlanta, GA: Author.

Corbin, C. B. & Pangrazi, R.P. (1998).  Physical activity for children: A statement of guidelines. Reston, VA: National Association for Sport and Physical Education.

Elias, M., Zins, J., Weissberg, R, Frey, K., Greenberg, M., Haynes, N., Kessler, R., Schwab-Stone, M., & Shriver, T.  (1997). Promoting social and emotional learning: Guidelines for educators.  Alexandria, VA : ASCD.

Haffner, D. ed. (1995).  Facing facts: Sexual health for America’s adolescents.  New York: National Commission on Adolescent Sexual Health.

Joint Committee on National Health Education Standards. (1995). National health education standards.  Atlanta, GA: American Cancer Society.

Kirby, D. (1997).  No easy answers: Research findings on programs to reduce teen pregnancy.

Washington, DC: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Kirby, D.  (2001).  Emerging answers: Research findings on programs to reduce teen pregnancy. Washington, DC: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Marx, E., Wooley, S., & Northrup, D. (Eds.). (1998). Health is academic: A guide to coordinated school health programs.  New York: Teachers College Press.

National Association for Sport and Physical Education. (1995).  Moving into the future: National standards for physical education. Reston, VA: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.  (Winter 2000). Chronic disease notes and reports.  Atlanta, GA: Author.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1996). Physical activity and health: A report of the Surgeon General.  Atlanta, GA: Author.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001). The Surgeon General’s call to action to prevent and decrease overweight and obesity. Rockville, MD: Author.