Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

Appendix B 347
development of individuality and independent thinking. The risk seems worth taking.
The principal purpose and direction of health education should be to equip students to
cope with the elements of change and cultivate the ability to resolve the problems
produced by change, through knowledge and skills - based learning.
Knowledge should be taught in a manner that facilitates an understanding of current
realities and fosters a willingness among students to accept today ’ s information as
usable, but anticipate that later discoveries, perceptions or political realities may significantly
change the usefulness of that knowledge. Learners will gain their security,
finally, not in given and fixed bodies of knowledge, but in the skill of knowledge
acquisition and the ability to analyze and apply it. Individuals must be given an opportunity
to choose which information to believe, and which behaviors to perform. If not
given such opportunities they may revolt, become apathetic, or deliberately live in
opposition to what is known and what is taught. They need to be informed, not threatened.
Learners need to be aided in the solution of their problems, not forced to accept
an imposed solution. Of equal importance is that they be equipped to do problem solving
for themselves and society as new situations confront them. Thus, health educators
must help learners use knowledge in making their choices, which in turn will encourage
them to engage in experimentation and evaluation throughout their life span.
The ultimate value of health education cannot be measured by ordinary standards
or in ordinary periods of time. One bit of health information properly applied may
save a life in the present or forty years later. That single life may be so valuable to
society that this health education learning may be of greater value than any other learning
that an individual may have experienced.
American Association of Health Education. (2005). Philosophy of Health Education: A Position Statement of the
American Association of Health Education (AAHE). Retrieved from http://www.aahperd.org/aahe/pdf_files/
pos_pap/Philosophy.pdf.