Preface

 

Health education has always formed an integral part of school education since the beginning; however its aims, content, problem scope and methods has always changed according to the characteristic features of the given period.

Large-scale social changes of recent years and international comparative researches connected to these changes (with regard to our topic the most important researches are the WHO HBSC 1983-2000, and the PISA 2000 – see more about these later) put the problem scope of the relationships between education as a strategic sector (and public education within) and health into the foreground.

The situation-revealing researches provide possibility for a criterion-oriented grasping of country specificities on the one hand. Those connection points (global key questions) that can become the actual motives of development in international – here in European – terms through mobilizing internal resources, helping and fortifying one another can become more realisable on the other hand.

The main directions of this European development were set by the international agreement known as the “Lisbon Strategy” (Council of Europe. 2000), which sets the most important European educational targets for the period ending in 2010.

This strategy depicts Europe’s future as the creation of a knowledge-based society, and the tasks of education are worded also in this context.

Education has to prepare people for being able to contribute to the creation of a knowledge-based society and for being able to live and work in it.

This places debates surrounding the effectiveness and efficiency of education into new light.

New social, political and economic challenges, the understanding and con­tent of school knowledge, the highlight on new key-competences put the profes­sion of educators to a serious test. But not only them. This is an equally great challenge and responsibility for the whole EU-community, the society, the educational management, the school and the parents as well.

Educators and of course every candidate has to be prepared for the fact, that schools have/will have a changed and extremely important role in enabling individuals in new ways for building their personal knowledge life long, for choosing among values and for searching for and creating new values and positive examples.

There is no doubt that health education - promotion has to/should play a distinguished role in this process.

All the above facts underline the importance and actuality of our present module (“Health promotion, health education, for lower-primary teacher trainees”) even more.

By raising the topic we strive at “tuning to one another” with the primary teacher trainees of three countries, providing a broad possibility for becoming more absorbed in own country specificities and then learn from one another, enrich one another and try to answer our starting question: What is that school like, or more precisely: by emphasizing versatility, what are those schools in which, as a part of our professional competence and by using health education and health promotion actively we can contribute to the fulfilment of the above mentioned global aims.

We are inviting you for a joint interactive thinking and coope­ration!

Let’s examine what does that school mean here and now that, in the noble sense of the word, is healthy and whose understanding is it, what should we pay attention to so as to make this school be able to contribute to the development of a healthy, multi-faceted personality who is able to combat and cooperate, and to make it a really attractive and motivating living-space and workplace for pupils and teachers as well.

Let’s think it through, what could we ourselves add to it to be able to gain more!

 

„If ...we connect the life and work of many people,

  we all can get farther together,

  than anyone advancing alone could.“

                                                                                  (Descartes)

 

For our interactive health-education workshop we are happily waiting for all those people who wish to cooperate!

 

 

 

Erzsébet Gyimes

Subcoordinator