| Abstract [eng] |
One of the aims of Lithuanian secondary school biology curriculum is to teach healthy life style. Perceiving the importance of health care and strengthening for children, teachers have to broaden students‘ knowledge of health, to help them understand the necessity of healthy way of life and to acknowledge health as one of the most important values in human life. At schools health subjects are mostly taught by biology teachers. They discuss health topics, which somethimes could be very difficult, with piupils. First of all, teachers should have great knowledge of health care so that during biology lessons piupils get knowledge about health .Therefore, teachers have to advance their knowledge, to improve their professional competence and also, they should achieve its recognition and become great masters of health care teaching. Research aim: To appraise the health needs for biology teachers at schools. Methods: 632 teachers working at schools were questioned during the anonymous questionnaire. Results: 60,4 % of the biology teachers think, that they lack knowledge about health problems of their pupils. The main spheres they note are mental health (39,1 % respondents) and sexual health (9,3 % respondents). The valid reasons preventing teachers from gaining professional knowledge are: lack of time (74,1 % respondents), shortage of seminars (40,5 % respondents), shortage of teacher professional development courses (24,2 % respondents). According to the respondents, health knowledge for physical education teachers should be given by: a lector at teacher professional development courses (42,6 % respondents), a doctor (38,8 % respondents) and a school nurse (6,3 % respondents). The need of teachers` health knowledge depends on sex (21,2 % men and 78,8 % women think that they do not know enough about health) and age. The elder biology teachers become, the more health knowledge teachers have. Resume: Biology teachers are short of health knowledge they have (sexual and mental health). That is why more seminars and teacher professional development courses, which are appointed to improve health knowledge, should be organised. More methodical literature, which would explain how to integrate health education into biology lessons, should be prepared and published. |
