Connie Jander: We Want All Of Our Kids Healthy and Fit

Connie Jander was the 2007 Missouri Physical Education Teacher of the Year. She has taught physical education at Old Bonhomme School in Olivette for 16 years. She is constantly on the lookout for ways to do her job better and to show improvement for her elementary school students.

Jander has teamed up with BJC Hospital and St.Louis OASIS to run an after-school program for better physical fitness and a healthy eating lifestyle for her children. Here’s what she told Patch.com about that program:

Patch.com: You seem to work very well with the OASIS project director Shelby Schroeder.

Jander: We seem to work well together. We worked on some training together. I heard that OASIS had a health and wellness component to it and oh, that sounds interesting. I searched on the internet, saw they were in St. Louis, and went ooh, that’s sounds good for us.

Patch: It just seems like you are always seek new and innovative ways to help your kids grow.

Jander: Any more opportunities to move and learn healthy habits we need to take those opportunities. We’ve introduced this to our BASK (before and after school classes) and right now its for our kids Kindergarten through second grade in the after school program.

Patch: Your kids take P.E. everyday, is all of this a double dose.

Jander: Yes it adds on to how much kids need to move each day. We meet those requirements through P.E. and recess but the more they are up, the better health they are going to have; better their brains are going to function, the happier they are going to be.

Patch: Why don’t you talk about the eating component of the program.

Jander: As part of the CATCH Healthy Habits program, they have a nutrition element. Through all their snacks, they were familiar with the right things, you know, fruits and Yogurt and that. I heard some weeks “oh, I’ve never tried this before.” We want to exposure our students to other options.

Patch: There’s no nutritional value to a bag of potato chips.

Jander: No, but you are not going to change habits with just one lesson. We give them little snippets all the time. Those repeated messages and now hearing from new people, the OASIS volunteers, not just P.E. teachers helps.

Patch: Do the stories from OASIS volunteers help out.

Jander: We had one speaker last year who had experienced a significant weight loss. Making that personal connection with the kids makes it that much more meaningful.

Each week we had a lesson and I emailed that to all the parents. That helps them to follow up at home and it has the recipe of the healthy snack they had that day.

Patch: Old Bonhomme has a garden so the kids get to learn about the fruits and vegetables they might eat.

Jander: Margaret Shockley (teacher) and Roxanne Troop (nurse) started the school garden. They get their hands in the dirt and see where that food comes from. Our cafeteria is now more focused on offering more fresh fruits and vegetables where they can.

We definitely have input with Chartwells (our food service) and they just have to follow federal food standards that come down to them. We don’t monitor what they eat. We are teachers not the police. We hope to educate rather than mandate.