Johnny He returns to Harvard-Kent Elementary School, which he attended in kindergarten, to help children lead healthier lives

Johnny He might be forgiven for his excitement when he learned he’d be part of a Doctor of Physical Therapy team that would do its capstone project at Harvard-Kent Elementary School.

That’s because the second-year student was returning to the Charlestown public school that he attended as a kindergartner.

“Everything just feels so much smaller than what I remember,” said He, looking around the school’s gymnasium while his DPT classmates began to corral a rambunctious group of about 50 fourth-graders on a recent Friday afternoon. “I remember the gym and the cafeteria being a lot bigger, and the stairways brought back some memories as well. It’s cool being here again.”

He and classmates Caroline Mitzel, Haley Powers, Jonah Sasahara, Marin Smith, and Natalie Metzger were conducting the last of their six-week health promotions class. The IHP students, after breaking up the youngsters into smaller groups, asked a series of questions: How often do you brush your teeth? Do you floss? Are you using deodorant regularly? How many times a week do you take a shower? Hands shot up after each question, as the pupils became engaged in answering them

By this final session, He and his classmates had learned that the pupils’ attention span for interacting and absorbing this type of information wasn’t long. So after about 15 minutes, they pivoted to organizing a series of games such as Rock-Tree-Bridge, basketball foul shooting, hula hoop, Capture the Flag. Laughter, cheers, and shouts filled the gym as the students competed to finish the activities.

Children sitting on floor
Johnny He (center, looking at photo), a second-year DPT students, attended Harvard-Kent Elementary School as a kindergartner. Now, as a DPT student at the MGH Institute. he's returned to provide health tips to schoolchildren.

In addition to having fun, what the games did was get all the nervous energy out of the pupils, allowing the DPT students to get in a few hygiene reminders and short Q&A sessions at the end of the hour before everyone grabbed a few pieces of candy as they were leaving.

According to Dr. Lesley Smith, an assistant professor of physical therapy and the group’s faculty mentor, the weekly sessions provided much-needed information because the Boston public schools no longer offer this type of information. She said each week, the IHP students researched several topics, including exercising, healthy eating and nutrition, and mindfulness, and then developed strategies on the best ways to communicate the information to the kids. Based on how the pupils reacted, the strategies worked quite well.

“I think the kids really understand why we’re talking about these things because they would say ‘Oh, it’s to get me strong and healthy’ and then we’d go down a path of asking how that can then can prevent an injury and different kinds of food they should eat,” said Marin Smith, the DPT student. “We couldn’t just say “These are the facts.’”

“Giving back is really nice and teaching the kids about this is important to promote a healthy lifestyle,” added Metzger, who anticipates working in pediatrics after she graduates from the program.

Now that they have completed their capstone project, the DPT students will put together and present a poster on their work to the faculty and their other classmates, all of whom participated in their own capstone project as part of their IHP education.

As for He, getting the chance to tell the Harvard-Kent pupils of his time at the school was a gratifying experience.

“It was a good opportunity sharing my insights of how I was in their shoes and that they could follow a similar path when they got older,” said He.

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