The Chronicle: Student News at The College of Saint Rose ? The ...

By VINCENT GABRIELLE
Staff Writer

I have got a confession to make. I have never filled out the ?You are special? card in the gym packet. I have never assembled a kit in case of an earthquake and I have never followed the behavioral contracts I have made. This means that I am ?unwell? according to the Phys-Ed Department. But what is this ?wellness? that these packets purport to enhance and are the methods in the packet effective?

The Phys-Ed Department has decided to assign wellness a whopping seven dimensions: Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Career, Intellectual, Environmental, and Social. The packet has corresponding sections designed to address these dimensions, a workout regimen for physical, a ?research? section for intellectual, and a mandatory trip to the career center and so on. The packet also asks that you sign ?Behavioral Change Contracts? for five of the dimensions which ask you to set a realistic self-improvement goal and a reward for achieving the goal. But what constitutes a healthy change and what constitutes a realistic goal especially in the abstract dimensions of wellness? I know that increased physical activity is a good goal for physical behavior, but what is ?improved spirituality?? How are you supposed to grade that? How do you know what a good goal is? These questions are not adequately answered by the materials provided in the packet nor are they addressed in the gym classes I have taken. The packet was always an afterthought, thrown in at the last second and barely addressed during class. With this kind of treatment, the packet is inevitably under addressed and poorly implemented. If ?wellness? is the goal, this is certainly not achieving it.

The packet does not just fail because it is usually an afterthought; the content of the packet is of dubious quality and looks randomly pasted together. The Spiritual section is particularly egregious. ?How has your education at the College of Saint Rose prepared you to embody courage in the future?? (Their emphasis, not mine). What kind of question is that? How is one supposed to know if a college education makes one courageous? What if your answer is that college has not impacted your level of courageousness? How is this question supposed to be graded? The question is confusing in context and is often left unaddressed in classes. I would like to have a discussion about this in a ?wellness? course, but I am not taking a ?wellness? course, I am taking swimming and we are doing 30 laps today. Without room in a course for discussion, the entire section makes no sense and adds nothing of value to a class.

The Spirituality section continues with another question like this (again their formatting not mine): ?List one way the Physical Education course prepared you to nurture respect for and the commitment to life-long learning in the future?? Grammatical errors aside this section makes no sense at all. Since when is it the job of my swimming teacher to ?instill a respect for life-long learning?; is that not something better left to other departments, like say Humanities, Arts and Sciences? I will surely gain a great respect for life-long learning between badly choreographed ?self-defense? sequences in which muggers are thwarted by flailing.

Finally, we come to the worst part of the section. First, it bizarrely quotes the ?National Interfaith Coalition on Aging? and lists some criteria for meaningful ?Spiritual Wellness?. Then, it goes on to ask (but not in bold this time) ?What higher power or God determines your values, ethics and morals??? This question is horrible and presumptive. It assumes that people are incapable of forming their own values and must have them imparted by some outside supernatural power. It assumes that everybody believes in a supernatural power or a god. I am an atheist, a humanist, and a Bright; how am I supposed to answer this? What if I was a pagan that believed that the gods were beings which are to be bargained with and appeased but not necessarily moral? What if I were a Buddhist or a Jainist? What if I just do not care? Are these theological and philosophical positions wrong? Will I get points taken off because I do not believe the way the presented by the packet or because I do not believe at all? Is this an appropriate question for a gym class to ask?

The Physical Education Portfolio or Wellness Packet is to be completed by every student who enrolls in a Saint Rose gym class. (Photo Credit: Sabrina Castrovinci)

These questions get to the heart of the problem with the packet; the ?wellness unit? crosses the line by blurring the personal ideology of whoever wrote the packet and the subject at hand. It does this without consideration for what an appropriate level of work is for a single credit course and for what the domain of a Physical Education Class should be. A phys-ed class should not try to be a ladder to enlightenment, should not evaluate your beliefs, and should not be where you stretch intellectually, emotionally or spiritually. A phys-ed class should not require you to attend a ?wellness fair? featuring pro-life activists and religious groups alongside booths hawking gym memberships and hiking clubs (which is something that happened at a wellness fair I attended two years ago). A political action group trying to ban abortions and advocates abstinence-only education is not an appropriate selection for a wellness fair. A religious organization is not an appropriate choice either unless you are willing to include more diverse opinions. When you do not do that you send a message that proclaims that there is only one way to be well and that way involves anti-abortion activists, church and exercise.

Now do not get the wrong idea; I would gladly do the non-physical education parts of the gym packet if they were presented in relevant courses or offered as a separate multiple credit ?wellness course?. In fact they already are. The College of Saint Rose is a liberal arts institution and features a wide array of classes that do the things the wellness packet fails to do. We have a religious studies department and philosophy department to cover matters spiritual and ethical. We have an English department that includes the Frequency North visiting author series. We have a science department that is not only intellectually challenging, but it also invites researchers to come and give talks. Every department is doing something related to the wellness packet. Following the liberal education guidelines pretty much covers everything in the packet without going over ideological lines or ham-fistedly shoving material where it does not fit in. The problem with the ?wellness? packet is not just that it is weird, poorly implemented and ideological; it is also redundant and unneeded.

Source: http://strosechronicle.com/wordpress/the-necessity-for-the-wellness-packet-not/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-necessity-for-the-wellness-packet-not

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