Children spend the majority of their time in a school environment with teachers who care for them as their own. As teachers, it is very important to know a child's normal ways so when there is something wrong or something different it is easily spotted. Children don't always open up to adults due to fear, conducting these health assessments places children in a comfort zone if they are conducted routinely. Not only for illnesses, but for any problem the child may be encountering, it is important for children to feel like someone is there for them and that they care.
Monitoring weight loss is imperative to a child's well being. Weight loss can be a result of many things, for example: malnutrition at home, depression, mental abuse, or physical illness. As a teacher it is my job to determine if a child is properly being cared for after they leave the school grounds. A teachers job is never done, I can monitor children while they are under my direct supervision, but making sure they return happy, nourished, and healthy is also part of my responsibility.
Daily health assessments will also teach and prepare children to take care of themselves as they get older. Teaching them proper eating habits, good communication skills, proper hygiene, and giving them support early in life will make an important impression on children, and hopefully make a lasting impression where they will use what they have learned once they have moved on to another classroom.
Recording what is noted in each individual child is absolutely necessary not only for making sure the child gets the proper care when something is noticed, but to have documentation if an incident happens to occur a second time. Unfortunately, there are children who suffer from abuse at home, documentation is important when you have to report something to child services.
Ultimately, "primary responsibility for a child's health care always belongs to the family" (Marotz, pg.60). However, as teachers and care takers of the children in our classroom, we must learn to read our children outside the box of norms. Health assessments make it easy for us to be able to tend to a child's needs, wants, illnesses, and well being.
hey jaz, that is really true i think that schools today should do more health assesments i know in the special ed class they sometimes have you feel out them on a day to day so the teacher will know how the child is feeling however i think its good also to start it in the home just keep a log on what your child eats, how they feel on a day to day, what might upset them its always easy like that you can start to see a patteren and realize what you might need to modify and make better
ReplyDeleteI read your blog and what you have posted on mine. I think you are right that teachers are essentially the parent away from home. Paying attention to signs is something that is really needed by teachers as we learned in chapter 2. I never looked at things this way until taking this class.
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