RE Log Spring 2022

14 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2022 throughout her childhood. As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, she covered health for the college daily newspaper, and later worked on health stories as a part-time writer at the Miami Herald . And she had learned at Ransom Everglades – through favorite teachers Ginny Onorati and Don Kappelman – that she could enjoy subjects she didn’t particularly like if a great teacher delivered the material. She began to wonder: Was there a better way to provide health education to students? Could it be comprehensive, engaging, effective and, in the eyes of adolescents, hip? During her years at UM law, she participated in the school’s STREET Law program, which used law students to teach law to high school students. She thought a similar model – students teaching students – might work for health and wellness in secondary schools. She believed if students were given the responsibility of passing on important information to their peers, they would rise to the challenge, and the experience would benefit all involved. Thirteen years later, it appears she was right. Since 2009, Risa Berrin’s Health Information Project (HIP) has brought an innovative health curriculum to 310,000 ninth-grade students at 85 schools – and counting. HIP at RE At the start of the mid-day break at Ransom Everglades on a recent Friday, some 50 juniors and seniors wearing orange HIP T-shirts fanned out across campus in groups of two or three, heading to classrooms filled with freshmen. The Peer Health Educators (PHEs) were armed with notes and presentations that they projected on screens, and adults were notably absent from the classrooms. Standing in front of their ninth-grade peers, they went through the day’s module – one of eight they would share with freshmen during the school year – which discussed drugs and alcohol. A PHE and vice president of HIP at RE, Dina Kaplan ’22 , recalled teaching a class of freshmen about eating disorders. During that session, one student shared a deeply personal story that affected all in the room – and indicated to Kaplan that HIP was making a difference. “It was really eye-opening,” she said. “We knew we were actually having an impact. To see students willing to share their personal experience, and make other people aware, was very moving.” Kaplan said her experience as a freshman with HIP was so powerful that she aspired to be a PHE when she reached the 11th grade. RE juniors and seniors become PHEs through a selective process, then undergo hours of training to ensure they are prepared for their new leadership roles. “When kids are hearing from adults on health topics, they are more likely to zone out,” Kaplan said. “They are way more attentive when juniors and seniors are talking to them about things … Watching your peers in leadership roles with HIP definitely inspires young people to get involved.” 2016 2017 “I originally heard what she was doing with peer-to-peer health education and was fascinated by the genius of it, since I knew that even my own kids didn’t listen to their doctor-mother when I gave them teenage health advice.” – Joely Kaufman-Janette ’88, P’18 ’24, HIP board member