Program Feedback

Teachers

Did the students enjoy working with the 7NP’s program?
“The students enjoyed the 7NPs. There was quite a bit of mystery as to whether they were real or not. So I played along with their ‘curiosity’. Also because the information came from doctors, they were keen to please them and learn.”

Was it easy to integrate the 7NP’s unit with cross curriculum activities?
“Yes, although it was predominantly a health unit I used it to cover a number of cross-curricula studies as well. When we were working with Dr Hydrop Therapy the students came up with many water issues: pollution, water wise, storage, water sports, water landscapes, etc.”

Were there any significant student responses to the 7NP’s unit?
“BALANCE was a key concept and I was pleased that the students picked up on that fact that health was not just physical; it was emotional and mental as well. I don't think many of them had explicitly or implicitly thought about these issues before. They think of health as being a physical thing, weight, food, etc.”

“This is deadly! Can we do our spelling like this all the time??!!” (Child response)

Do you have any suggestion to enhance our health curriculum?
“Our current health curriculum tends to be presented to students in a series of segments. The 7NPs links all areas together in a simple manner and shows how one area impacts another.”

Additional Comments:
“I really enjoyed this program. It is very visual and very tactile, which is exactly what the students in my class enjoyed about the program.

Student Comments

The following comments are a few of the answers students gave when asked how they felt the doctors had helped them.

“I know a lot more about the body and how to help it. And I am thinking a lot more about water and I eat more fruit and vegies.”

“When I get angry I think about the doctors.”

“The doctors have helped me by telling us all of these wonderful things!”

“They have changed my attitude about my angriness. I go and get some more sleep to help me calm down.”

“When I am in trouble I think about the doctors.”

Doctors, Allied Health Professionals and Counsellors

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Family and Friends

The following responses are from parents who were a part of a small study that ran over a 12 month period from 2006 - 2007. Eight families were given a copy of the children’s picture book Meet the 7 Natural Physicians to read to their children and a 7NP’s Managing my Emotions poster to hang somewhere in their house. They were simply asked to use the information on the poster at anytime they felt it might be helpful to resolve any physical or emotional problems their children were experiencing.

(For more detail see Resources)

Family A
“We put the poster in the most travelled places where all important info goes…on the back of the toilet door. That’s where the multiplication tables are, pictures of the grandparents and the 7NPs.

We bring it up all the time. Children get such a barrage of health information at schools. In HPE (Health & Physical Education) they study all about exercise; they talk about the AGHE (Australian Guide for Healthy Eating); the right foods to eat; in the media there is ‘The Big Loser’ which is all about diet and exercise. So when we talk about all these health issues we use the 7NP’s as a guide fro discussion. We use it to tie all this health info together. If there is a health issue we say, ‘How does that relate to the 7 doctors – attitude, air, nutrition, etc?’

Like the other day we were reading about a farmer who had died and he was very strong. The children wanted to know ‘how come he died if he was so strong?’ So we went through each of the 7 doctors and discussed different facts relating to them and the farmer’s life. Nutrition: we talked about how farmers’ diets aren’t as good as they used to be and that they sometimes eat a lot of fatty, dairy foods. They used to get a lot of exercise and do a lot of walking and physical work but now they have farm machinery to do that and spend long hours sitting in tractors, etc.

There are lots of health issues and problems that we can look to the doctors for in order to find practical ways to help solve or avoid the problems. When there is an issue I usually say, ‘Which Dr do you think would have the most to say about that health issue?’ I also say ‘you can’t talk to just one Dr, like Dr Zizz ….otherwise you would just sleep your life away. You can’t just talk to the exercise doctor…you have to talk to them all.’

Family B
“With the first read of Meet the 7 Natural Physicians Jen was really interested and I found by the second reading of the book that she had actually recalled a lot of the information. When we came to the exercise page she started to run around and exercise.

It really helped us with water. Jen had had a few accidents with toilet training and had developed a mind set that if she didn’t drink she could avoid future accidents. We had talked to her about why water is good for you using analogies like cleaning things around the house with water to keep them clean and how we need to do that for the inside of our body. I noticed that after using the doctors to back up the information that Jen started to drink more water. The picture helped her to relate more to the info and also to remember it and to do it. In the past if I had told her something about what we needed to do to be healthy she wouldn’t remember, but with the doctors she was able to.”

Family F
“I think it is really important. It is like the ‘ABC of health’. Just like we learn the days of the week, the alphabet, counting, etc…we should learn the 7 Natural Physicians as the basic concepts for lifelong health and wellbeing.”

Family G
Jet is only five years old and very clever. He spoke to me for about 10-15 minutes on the phone and still wanted to tell me more about all the things he knew. He told me “Dr Think Right helps …like if someone is going to do something wrong, them he can tell them what to do before they do it so they don’t do the wrong thing. I asked, “When do you think about the doctors Jet?…or where are you when you think about them?" He paused and then answered, “I think about them everywhere.”

Quite unexpectedly Jet added, “That poster you made comes in real handy.”