As a society and as individuals, we shape the world's future through our children. Public education is a reflection of society's hopes and vision for the future. Students' success and school health will determine nothing less than their nation's place in an increasingly competitive, interconnected world.
If our children and youth are to have happy and rewarding childhoods and lead productive lives as adults, we must leave no child's development to chance. The current direction in educational policy and practice focuses overwhelmingly on academic achievement. However, academic achievement is but one element of student learning and development, and only one part of any complete system of educational accountability. The conditions that maximize student learning also require attention to the significant health needs of each child and young adult. We cannot allow our focus to be dichotomized. Accordingly, we must look beyond standards setting and systems of accountability, and join hands to address the widespread conditions that interfere with students' learning and students' health.
We know that the playing field is not level for all children. And just as there are disparities in academic achievement along lines of race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, there are also disparities in school health. Unhealthy school practices can lead to learning problems in school and health-related problems that may continue into adulthood.
Meeting Basic Developmental Needs
An important part of learning readiness is good nutrition and regular heath care so that children can attend school regularly and make the most of their time in school. Numerous studies have demonstrated links between academic achievement, young people's attachment to school, and health behavior. Many educators and researchers also agree that the brain is activated during physical activity and that movement is essential to learning (Hannaford, 1995).
Avoidable behaviors and environments also put the health of young people at risk: HIV/AIDS, substance and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence. Until these and other health problems are addressed in our communities and schools, the ability of large numbers of students to perform well academically is compromised. Evidence has been mounting that meeting the basic developmental needs of students—that is, ensuring that students are safe, drug free, and resilient—is central to improving their academic performance (Allensworth, Lawson, & Wyche, 1997).
ASCD believes a comprehensive approach to learning recognizes that successful young people are knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, motivated, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond their own borders. To help students meet this standard and succeed, the best mechanisms must be in place, and the most effective mechanism for creating an environment that supports learning and teaching is a coordinated, evidence-based approach to school health programming.
Reconnecting Learning to Life
Schools with coordinated health education activities are positioned to help students improve health-related knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Through these programs, schools can help improve health behaviors and outcomes, educational outcomes, and social outcomes among children and young adults.
Therefore, the right decision for us is to become leaders in the creation of a new landscape of learning and teaching that reconnects our children's learning to life. We don't have to choose between better academic achievement, healthy outcomes, and the development of the whole child. Rather, we should concentrate on the total package.
In a democratic society, schools must go beyond teaching fundamental skills (Noddings, 2005). ASCD has accelerated its work to promote the needs of the whole child. But how we go about this work is as important as the work itself. If we build the bridges of collaboration and partnership with teachers, school administrators, health educators, students, parents, and community stakeholders, so that we are working together for the benefit of our children, we can show others that addressing the whole child is not a zero-sum game that forces us to make false choices. This is particularly true at a time when focus on school transformation is so great.
To examine and make recommendations about how to recast the current focus of schools, ASCD has convened a commission of leading thinkers, researchers, and practitioners from a wide variety of sectors. The Commission on the Whole Child is looking at the competencies and habits of mind that young people need for healthy, productive lives.
Today, ASCD is calling upon you as partners to do what it has begun as an association—to ratchet up your focus on making significant change in connecting school health and student success, and educating the whole child.