Better schools through health: learning from practice

YOUNG PEOPLE‘S VISIONS OF THE IDEAL SCHOOLWritten by participants of the young people‘s workshop at the 3rd European conferenceon health promoting schools these are two essays with visions of a school whereeveryone is healthily and happily learning.1. My vision of an ideal schoolby Ana Raquel AguiarIn my opinion the ideal school is one which educates and builds happy and dignifiedhuman beings. For me, happiness is what people look for and dignity is found whenpeople control their actions in order not to compromise anybody else’s happiness andfreedom. A school plays a fundamental role when it comes to the formation of individualpeople. It teaches them not just how to work while in an important job, but also how todeal with others in a harmonious and healthy way. For us to successfully communicatewith each other we need interpersonal skills and also physical and mental well-being.I had access to some of the health promotion programmes in my school and I thinkthey are excellent. A lack of funds to develop these programmes is one reason why notall school pupils have this chance. Also there are teachers who, because of their workload, can‘t get involved with these programmes teaching us how to interact with eachother.Nowadays, we do not know how to face others as our parents did once. We are gettingshy and lonely, hiding ourselves in front of a computer. We need the help of teachersto build the foundations for healthy relationships. Healthy relationships between eachother are indispensable and there are programmes like the one developing in myschool that can bring lots of benefits to young people.I have been saying that interpersonal relations is a theme which needs to be deeplyworked on in a better school. However, for students who are spending their whole dayat school, basic needs, such us eating, need to be met as well. The school must providea balanced and varied diet in the canteen. Fast food or “plastic food” should not beallowed because it will only develop bad habits for those who eat it. Physical exercise isalso extremely important because exercising regularly and having good eating habitsare the most significant things anyone can do to improve their physical health. Beingfit is the key to being physically healthy, but everybody also needs mental health andin order to get it, one of the best ways I can think of is the programme I was involvedwith. I will now explain it in detail.The program was divided into sessions, and although it was not a school subject we(the students of my classroom) took part in these sessions within school time. Weworked together with a group of teachers and other older students who voluntarilyparticipated in the project. Essentially in each session a different subject was discussed.Themes such as self-confidence, adolescence, bullying, expressing yourself, drugs,alcohol, sex, HIV were spoken about and we were taught how to deal with them. Inthis way we gained some experience in life and got to speak about taboo topics. Wealso learnt, in some cases, how to correct the problem or, in other cases, how to acceptit. With this program I started to look at the others as human beings who might need16