By Celiang Huang, Staff-writer
While the Health Academy has been a popular choice for students looking to get experience in the healthcare field, another aspect the juniors and seniors have been focusing on is mental and spiritual health. Health Academy teachers, Mr. McDowell and Ms. Moffett took the class to 826 Valencia Tenderloin Center to create podcasts that shared the students’ experience with mental health issues and how they’ve handled it.
In order to help create the podcast, volunteers from 826 Valencia helped work with students on their writing skills. Groups of students were provided with a writing coach, 1 for every 3 to 4 students, so students would be able to get instant feedback on their work.
Prior to the field trip, the Health Academy students also worked on learning how to prevent and avoid mental health issues in high-stress professions like healthcare stress professions like healthcare from the past 8 weeks. In their English classes, Ms. Moffett was also teaching a number of lessons that focused on happiness and well-being. All of these things helped the students collaborate & figure out what to say when they recorded their podcasts project.
Some of the activities the students participated in before recording their podcast were centered around the topic of problem-solving and addressing mental health issues. Health Academy student, John W. said, “The activity that we were focusing on is to have a discussion within the cohort and talk about the struggles we have about mental health and how you solve it.”
John’s podcast shared a heartwarming story about a teenage girl on Tiktok who was having anxiety about her apprentice and that affected her daily life since she was being self-ashamed. Those enthusiastic and friendly netizens on Tiktok decided to compliment her every day. As a result, the girl walked out of the shadow and started to pursue happiness. This story touched John’s heart and in his podcast he urged people to be kind human beings. He said, “I had never thought that a few words can totally change a person. Maybe I should consider myself to be the kind of person who shows off positive energy to all the people around the community.”
Mr. McDowell was touched at the stories he heard from his students. He said, “I’m always amazed at real life experiences that come out in my students’ stories. Many of the students have very interesting or intense histories that you don’t necessarily hear about through everyday conversation. When the students write it seems to provide a more comfortable way for them to express their stories.”
