St. Nursing students teach health class at NPHS
By ERIN REDIHAN, Breeze Correspondent

NORTH PROVIDENCE - North Providence High School students in health teacher Alexandria Grande's classes have benefitted from a series of guest lecturers recently, as the freshmen students from St. Joseph's School of Nursing have been teaching on various topics
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"They called us last year because they were interested in teaching at a high school and we're so close to them," Grande said of the North Providence-located nursing school that is located at Fatima Hospital, before the latest group presented on March 11.

"It's worked out so well. My students ask questions, they're excited and very intrigued to learn from them," she said.

The nursing students teach 55-minute classes on Thursdays and Fridays as part of their spring semester course work. It is an assignment that they take seriously and work hard to prepare for in advance.

"This is graded for them like a clinical day, the same as it would be if they were on the unit," St. Joseph's nursing instructor Joan Hilton said. "They do this while the rest of the class is on the unit."

For several weeks of the semester, a different group of four students spends either Thursday or Friday at the high school teaching Grande's four classes. They select from a list of topics that are part of the standard NPHS health curriculum for sophomores and juniors, which are the classes that they see.

"At the beginning of the quarter, I give them a needs assessment and asked the (NPHS) students what they are curious to learn about," Grande said. "The (St. Joseph's) students cover topics that I don't have time to fit in and my students can learn a lot from them."

For instance, this semester, the nursing students are teaching a lesson on dementias, something that Grande would not normally cover because of time constraints.

Teaching is an important skill for nurses to learn, according to Hilton, because it is a major part of the job in almost all capacities. Therefore, it is built into the curriculum so that every St. Joseph's student graduates with a wide range of experiences to better prepare them for this aspect of the field.

"In the fall, we go to the Dora Howard Day Care Center (in Greenville) and present there," Hilton said. "It's a 15-minute program with the residents there, so it's a little harder here. Each semester it gets more intense because teaching is a big part of nursing. We try to give them the experience of using a variety of methods so that they're better prepared. In a hospital, it's a lot of one-on-one. They learn a lot too while they're doing it."

This semester the nursing students are presenting on alcohol use, Alzheimer's disease, eating disorders, and sun safety, among other topics.

Last Friday, students Melinda Tupper, Megen Breton, Adeyinka (Bernard) Enaiyedun, and Rosanna Neville taught Grande's 11th-graders about nutrition and healthy diets while Hilton and St. Joseph School nutritionist Laura Tedeschi observed.

While none of the four had any prior teaching experience, their PowerPoint-based lesson kept the first class of the day engaged for the whole session.

"They were good," Hilton said. "The students paid attention and knew the answers to the quiz questions. Even when the classes are a little more active, they tend to stay on track."

The nursing students opened the class by asking the students to write down everything they had eaten so far that day, something they would come back to later in class.

Tupper taught the group about the new food pyramid and some changes that the students could make to improve their health and diets.

"You can use whole grain or wheat pasta instead of white in macaroni and cheese," she said. "If you drink a lot of whole milk or have it in coffee, go gradually to 2 percent, then one, then skim. Choose low fat or lean meats. It's not like you have to just eat salads all of the time."

Breton helped the students learn how to decode a nutrition label.

"One of the most effective ways to make healthy choices is to read food labels and ingredient lists," she said. "If you have a fruit cup where the ingredients are listed in order as 'sugar, water, and then fruit,' it will not offer much in the way of nutrient density."

Instead, Breton told the students to look for fruit cups where the fruit is packed in water or juice rather than syrup.

Another important caveat is to make sure that you look at the serving size of a product.

"It's usually less than most people think," she said
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In terms of food labels and portion size, Enaiyedun warned the students that fast food places are some of the worst culprits. He passed out an article that the St. Joseph's students read for one of their own classes on the hidden nutrition facts of several popular fast food chains.

"This was a real shock to me because I go to some of these places a lot," he said. "While places like Panera showcase themselves as being healthier than McDonald's, the portions they give you makes going there a lot less healthy than you believe. For instance, if you get a 700-calorie sandwich, plus a drink like lemonade and an apple, you're up to 1,000 calories. Before you know it, you've had half of your day's calories in one meal."

At the end of the class, the NPHS students shouted out the answers to 10 quiz questions that the St. Joseph's students projected onto a screen. This lesson, like all of the other groups so far, was a hit with the students.

"It's a great change of pace for the students because they see a different group every Thursday or Friday," Grande said. "They bring in the most accurate, up-to-date information and are a great resource for health classes, which is hard to find. After the first class, I offer them suggestions on time management ideas if they get stuck. Each time the teaching gets better and they do a great job by last period."

Hilton and Tedeschi offer their own critique between classes as well, much of it positive.

"These presentations are done entirely by the students from beginning to end," Hilton said. "I've been very pleased and the (NPHS) student reactions have been very positive. I'm very proud of my students. They've done very well and worked hard at it."

Grande is also pleased with how this arrangement is working out.

"They'll come back next year too," she said. "We're building it into the curriculum now. They love coming here and the kids enjoy it because they get to see things we don't have access to here."