The introduction of the health sciences course in Hungarian education. Health education in primary schools (1946-1950)

Abstract

The importance of a healthy lifestyle and health promotion is increasingly in the spotlight today. The protection of physical and mental health is a defining problem in the 21st century, and counteracting the adverse effects is an important mission. We only need to think about environmental protection, global epidemics, diseases caused by stress, or the negative consequences of a sedentary lifestyle, which is increasingly common with the spread of mass media. These problems do not only affect adults, children also suffer intensely. And the negative effects on children always become problems for the education system. In addition to the fact that education for a healthy lifestyle is an important task of public education, eliminating the harmful effects caused by the world around us, which is often reflected in the behaviour of pupils, is - in part - also the schools’ task. In this study, I present the origins and the first steps of this mission, primarily with regard to schools for 6-14-yearolds (elementary school, civil school and then primary school), that is the appearance of health sciences, health promotion as content, and later as a subject in the Hungarian education system. After the presentation of the first 1917 curriculum supplement related to healthy living, I analyse the curricula of both elementary schools and civil schools between the two world wars, monitor the emergence and then disappearance of the health sciences subject, and then briefly review the new type of school created in 1946 , the circumstances of the establishment of the primary school, as well as the curriculum published in 1946 and 1950, of course also searching for content related to health promotion.