I began teaching high school health education in the early 70’s.  Since then, I have focused on two essential questions: what does it mean to be emotionally and socially healthy, and how do we facilitate emotional and social well-being in classrooms?  For my doctoral dissertation, I developed courses on emotional and social health for high school juniors and seniors at the school where I taught.  The courses focused on developing skills in self-awareness, decision-making/personal problem-solving, relationship skills, and the willingness and ability to self-disclose.  Many of the student learning experiences in these courses were the same or very similar to those on this website.  The classroom environment, group format, seating arrangement, teacher’s role as facilitator and coach, and student self-assessment were the same. The results of my dissertation indicated the following (among others): high school girls who participated in these courses showed significant post-test improvement in their mental (emotional) health, as measured by autonomy, self-concept, and self-actualization, compared to those in the control groups. 

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When school health education programs were eliminated in my state due to budget cuts (health education and the arts are always the first to go and the last to come back), I had a career as a high school associate principal, a middle school principal, and a K-8 curriculum coordinator.  In addition, I taught health education curriculum and instruction courses and supervised student teachers at Northeastern University and the University of Minnesota. When health education was reinstated at the school where I was principal, I was fortunate to return to teaching 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade health education for the final decade of my public school career.  It was there that I refined the student learning experiences and projects on this website.

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Since retiring from teaching health education in public schools, I have conducted workshops for adults on resolving interpersonal conflicts, facilitated groups for people retiring or in other major life transitions, and co-facilitated a group for people living with health challenges.  For seven years, I co-facilitated an 18-session, two-hour sexuality program for 8th graders called Our Whole Lives (OWL), which is the gold standard for healthy relationships and sexuality curriculum.  In addition, I served on the committee that helped revise the current edition of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Health & Physical Education Framework.  Over the last decade, I have been editing the learning experiences and projects on this website. This curriculum builds on my doctoral dissertation and my experience as a middle and high school health education teacher. I have personally used most of these student learning experiences in some form with middle and high school students, as well as the relationship and conflict resolution skills with college students and adults. 

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For additional information about my research, see The Development and Evaluation of a Mental Health Course and Its Relationship to Changes in Self-Concept, Autonomy, and Self-Actualization below.  An unpublished doctoral dissertation. H. Herrick Hawkins, 1979. 

I am indebted to Alexa Williamson of Alexa Effie Creative, a design studio dedicated to crafting purposeful design that fuels the growth of mission-driven brands, for her support of this project and the design of the website.