Future teacher connects with students while bridging mental and physical health

Future teacher connects with students while bridging mental and physical health

It had been a rough day. They were burned out. They needed someone to listen.

At Logan High School, freshmen knew Ms. Brunkow's classroom was a place where they could exhale.

As a student teacher in physical education and health, Jada Brunkow spoke candidly about her own past struggles with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. Her vulnerability shifted the atmosphere in the room. Students opened up about their own fears, pressures and mental health struggles.

"I want students to know I'm not perfect - I'm not happy all the time," Brunkow says. "When students see that you've struggled, it opens the door to talk about it and understand it more."

So when her placement ended in March and students realized there would be no more Ms. Brunkow to talk to every day, many said goodbye through tears - including Brunkow herself.

"It was a full-circle moment," she says. "I don't think kids realize what they do for me too. All the struggles I dealt with that I thought I'd never get over - they were worth it because now I can connect with these kids. My empathy is stronger. I can stand up and tell them it does get better and you can do this, whether you know it or not."

Finding purpose through personal struggle

Brunkow's journey at UWL began in fall 2021. She had experienced anxiety and depression throughout grade school and high school, but as a three-sport athlete, sports provided structure, accomplishment and control she needed to manage it.

When she arrived at college and sports were no longer part of her daily life, she struggled to fill that void. Food became a way to regain control during a time of major transition.

"With an eating disorder, you feel out of control, so you try to control something," she says. "I was going through a huge change coming to college and not knowing what to do."

As she lost weight, she never felt satisfied. And around late September, she began to realize something was wrong. At first, she hid those struggles, but the behaviors only became worse. By the spring semester of her freshman year, she had hit a wall. Exhausted mentally and physically, she told her parents she could not return to school. She stepped away from college and entered treatment from April through August.

"Thank goodness for my friends and family," she says. "I don't think I'd be here without their support."

When Brunkow returned to campus her sophomore year, she encountered a classroom assignment that could have easily derailed her recovery. In a health course with Teaching Associate Professor Sarah Mosley, students were asked to track their food intake and calories.

"I said, respectfully, 'I can't do this. I'm just out of treatment and in recovery,'" Brunkow recalls.

Instead of dismissing her concerns, Mosley listened. She encouraged Brunkow to approach the assignment differently by sharing a presentation with the ESS 230 class on how nutrition could be taught through an eating disorder-informed lens.

"Because of Jada's advocacy, I have completely changed the way I teach nutrition for future health teachers," says Mosley.

Brunkow created a presentation focused on building a healthy relationship with food. What began as a class project evolved into a collaborative research and advocacy effort between Brunkow and Mosley. Brunkow presented the work at the Wisconsin Health Education and Physical Education Conference and later to a full house at the National Physical Education and Health Education Conference in Baltimore with support from Mosley who also helped Brunkow answer questions from dozens of people from the audience seeking guidance afterward.

"Jada is a natural leader and her experiences with eating disorders have reached people across the country," says Mosley.

The presentations gave Brunkow an opportunity to advocate for mental health awareness on a national stage while helping educators navigate sensitive conversations around nutrition and body image. Many teachers are now implementing the activities that were shared as part of the presentation and provided to attendees for free.

"Those talks helped me recover," Brunkow says. "Mosley is the kind of teacher I want to be - someone who listens instead of shutting students down. She has been a huge person in my life and helped me through this more than she probably realizes."

Creating classrooms where students feel seen

Now, Brunkow is bringing those lessons into her own teaching. During her student teaching experience at Logan High School, she introduced a mental health unit centered on connection, empathy and self-reflection.

Students created keychains with positive messages such as "You got this" and "You are loved" to give to peers outside of their normal friend groups. They wrote gratitude letters to influential teachers and participated an anonymous writing assignment where classmates shared what made them feel scared, stressed or happy. The discussions that followed encouraged students to see life from someone else's perspective.

"We need to break the stigma," Brunkow says. "We know a lot of people are struggling. Why don't people talk about it?"

Brunkow completed her final student teaching placement at West Salem Elementary School, where she continued weaving mental health into physical education. At the start of class, students check a color-coded chart displayed on the screen and choose an exercise movement that matches how they are feeling - red for angry, yellow for excited, green for calm and focused, and blue for tired or sad.

"We're working on recognizing emotions and talking about them," she says.

For Brunkow, physical education and mental health are inseparable.

"Why are they treated as separate things?" she asks. "We all have physical health and mental health. We talk about physical health all the time, but mental health is just as important. A lot of times they're connected."

She believes empathy, connection and open conversation are key to breaking stigma. Brunkow also acknowledges that students may not be ready to share their own experiences yet - and that is OK. "Now I have a voice, so I can help others who can't share their story," she says.

This fall, Brunkow will continue sharing that story as a K-12 physical and health education teacher at Kickapoo Area Schools. She plans to continue bridging mental and physical health in her classroom.

"I hope my students will see that mental and physical health go hand in hand," she says.

Brunkow will do great things as a teacher because of her passion for mental health, says Mosley. The two have already discussed ways that they can collaborate on projects.

"Jada and I often discuss that our experiences shape who we are and sometimes sharing those experiences help us heal - I too have struggled with my own mental health and sharing my story has helped me cope," says Mosley. "I have learned as much from Jada as she has from me."

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Observed since 1949, Mental Health Awareness Month is dedicated to reducing stigma, educating the public and advocating for mental health care.