Katherine Wendling

Journal #3

April 1st, 2024

As a health educator, we have a responsibility to not only be a resource in our classrooms

but also in the community or other school events. This is an important step to showing students

that you take the extra mile to advocate for them, their overall health, and their educational

experiences. Some activities a health educator could participate in are planning for wellness

fairs, organizing for public speakers, sit on committee meetings for topics such as nutrition,

PE/Health related issues and even organized events outside of school hours.

Actions that I have taken as a health educator that also works as a resource person are

organizing the high school’s health fair. I have also worked with multiple different public

speakers on coming to talk to both my third, fourth and fifth graders, but also to the high school.

I also have sat in on meetings for the different building’s school health committees and we have a

PE/Health K-12 vertical alignment and check-in meeting once every two months.

Recently, I was able to observe a public speaker during my high school observation hours

that my SBTE arranged. It was two individuals; both were alcohol and drug counselors, and both

were recovering alcoholics. This was an excellent opportunity for me to see how much power

public speakers can hold when speaking to high schoolers, but also how important it is to give

the students exposure to these types of opportunities. A few successes from the past few weeks is

building more meaningful connections with more students as they are starting to get to know me

more as well. It is also nice for me to see students that I coach when I am completing hours at the

high school, and they are always happy to see me!

 I have not had many challenges recently, but the days leading up to spring break were

crazier than normal! A lot of chatting and redirection was needed to keep everyone on task and

focused during class, but those were the only major challenges for me. Overcoming the chatter

and redirection was not difficult because I did offer some incentive for reward with the

opportunity to earn a little candy ahead of break. The students always enjoy a little treat on their

way out of class if they have earned it. Overall, my experience is still going smooth, and I am

feeling more confident!