BOOK REVIEW
BY YOUSHEY ZAKIUDDIN

The guide, “Small is Healthy” is a very clearly written and reader-friendly book which covers in detail many aspects that schools should be aware of when introducing health. The text is not just addressed to those who manage schools; it is also an excellent manual for policy-makers, teachers and trainers.

Most schools usually have little or no experience in the area of promoting health education.

Most of them do not even work to include health education as part of their formal syllabus or curriculum. The general perception is that health is a component that altogether requires a different set of skills and a range of different resources, something that may prove costly for schools.

To help schools and teachers with ideas that are simple and doable, Dr. Pat Pridmore and Dr. Tashmin Kassam-Khamis have together composed an excellent guide to promote health in schools.

In a clear and comprehensible way it guides through the impact a school’s participation can have on the health of the community. It shows how the school’s child-to-child approach can be integrated to effectively educate children and the wider community about health related issues. It demonstrates how the schools can help create a healthful environment and how schools can work with the community to provide and strengthen community-based health services.

The ideas are incredibly simple and they guide how conventional health education can help teachers develop and organize their classrooms and their teaching methodologies creatively; how it can help school administrators construct low-cost and helpful health policies; and how it can inspire the community to work with schools and the children to ensure better health for everyone.

The book has been very well structured with the topics in a very logical sequence. The initial sections explain how teachers can successfully teach health in small schools and how they then spread health knowledge and skills from the school to the environment and the community. The later sections give detailed examples of lesson plans for teaching small classes of different levels about health topics that are crucial for children and their families.

“Small is Healthy” is surely an important resource book and an essential handbook that will enable teachers to create effective lesson plans to improve the physical and emotional health of children, their families and their communities.