The Case for Teaching Sex Ed to a Mixed Group

Sex education is one of those topics that really tends to divide people. Many people, myself included, have strong feelings about what, when and how it should be taught. In some circles, the word "if" might even appear on that list.

As a society, we can see the discomfort with the topic through the many euphemisms we use for sex ed. (and sex in general, but that list would be longer than anyone might care to read!)-- from "human growth and development" to "family life", and everything in between. Sometimes these cause confusion, like the time I was in elementary school and I heard we were going to study "family life". I thought it would be about things like road trips and camping vacations.

The sad truth is, society has some big hangups when it comes to discussing sex and sex education, and students are all too aware of this.

Whatever our religious, cultural and political leanings, most Canadians can agree that it is a good idea to give kids some sort of "heads-up" about changes coming in puberty and how these affect human reproduction.

The old-school way was to separate out the boys and girls and give them the information they needed in a lecture followed by a question and answer session. Sometimes there would be a question box for students who were uncomfortable asking in person. The rationale was that students were more comfortable talking about these things with students of their own gender, and that they each needed different information.

And herein lies the problem.

This practice makes some assumptions that can hurt students.

First of all, I will argue that it is very important and relevant for students to understand the changes that everyone goes through in adolescence, not just themselves. By learning about others. students are much more likely to develop empathy with others. They are better equipped to understand other family members, friends and partners, and to become better parents as they have a greater understanding of the human reproduction portions of sex education.

Second of all, dividing the class in this way displays an assumption of the gender binary, and also of adherence to assigned gender for any trans or non-binary students who might not yet be "out". The intention of creating a safe environment to ask questions and share information does quite the opposite for such students. This can also be devastating for students who are questioning their gender identity.

If we are serious about creating safe, caring and inclusive schools that celebrate diversity and welcome everyone, we need to rethink the way we have traditionally gone about teaching sex education in particular, but also in all of the ways in which we assume gender binary by dividing students into boy and girl teams, lines in the hall, and so on from kindergarten or even earlier. In an era in which the topic of gender is as divisive as ever, we need to take care in our choices with the newest generation.

So how do we encourage students to ask questions and seek clarification?

Some things we can do to help create a safe environment for everyone:

- encourage students to share their feelings about sex and sex ed. with the group, allowing for students to contribute anonymously
- collaborate with the group to set up a list of behaviour expectations for group discussion
- encourage all students to ask questions, and make an effort to answer all the questions as accurately as possible (allow yourself time to consult with health professionals as needed)

Some ways to allow for anonymity:

- distribute 1-2 cards or sticky notes per student and instruct them to write their questions on these; students without questions can write "hello" or similar instead; collect all notes so that no one student stands out as having had a question
- have a question box students can add their questions to anonymously
- set up a Google Form with a short-answer option and turn off the "show email" option

Improving Student AND Teacher Engagement

Today is report card writing day. I am one of those teachers who generally hates marking. I try and give mark-free feedback along the way as much as possible to keep students working on improving rather than obsessing about marks. But when it comes to report cards, a mark must be given, along with supporting evidence.

In my recent LTO positions, the "regular" teacher has left me more "traditional" units which overlap with their time in the class. I have also had some planning time LTO work where I rotate from class to class for 30 minute blocks of time, which has made more hands-on projects very challenging in terms of storage as well as set-up and take-down. This has left me with less freedom to do hands-on activities.

I really believe in the idea that we learn best by doing, by trying things out, by making mistakes and learning how to adjust and problem solve our way through a challenge.

This spring I have focused on making much of the learning hands-on. For science, the students created their own building companies. They created a name and logo for their companies. They had to apply their math to create and follow a budget for supplies and to draw out accurate building plans. They had to apply their understanding of internal and external forces. They had to determine and delegate smaller jobs to bring their project together, and so on. I incorporated building and safety permits, fines for noise and safety violations...you get the picture.

For language, they created and filmed book trailers or highly detailed book posters. For social studies, they took on roles throughout the study of first contact, and are working on building either a Fakebook profile or news article about a specific person or topic.

What I'm finding is that the more hands-on the activity, is, the more the students are engaged. They enjoy sharing their work and take a greater pride in sharing it than any more traditional paper-and-pencil tasks. This was not a surprise to me. What was a pleasant surprise is that the marking is becoming much more enjoyable to me as well.

My tea is nearly ready as I sit back and watch a second batch of book trailers. Netflix has nothing on my students in 5A!

The Importance of Prior Knowledge

The Blue Walloo

Over the next few days, we will explore the controversy regarding allocating additional funding to The Blue Walloo. Stakeholders supporting the move have expressed concerns that failure to do so will provide incentive to further defund similar programs. Those opposed state that such funding sets precedents that are difficult, if not impossible, to maintain.

Please state and defend your position regarding the funding of The Blue Walloo. You must include supporting evidence and a concise conclusion.

What is wrong with this exercise?

Do you know what The Blue Walloo is? Did you make a guess--and if so, what did you guess?

It could be a night club, an oceanographic exploration, an endangered bird, a novel, a painting, a secret service operation, a cultural event…

What if I gave you the following words to define--would this make the exercise accessible?

blue

controversy

funding

precedents

stakeholders

opponents

concerns

walloo

allocating

programs

Now, try substituting the phrase “The Blue Walloo” with one of the following:

Brexit

Polar bears

The Children’s Festival

The Food Bank

The Museum

The Norther Gateway Pipeline

OK2BME

Foreign Aid to Nigeria

The Humane Society

Municipal snow removal

The Heritage Front

House of Friendship Shelter

ION LRT

International Space Exploration

Arms trade with Columbia

Reception House

The Public Library

Employment Insurance

Medical research

Local hockey team

Local Symphony Orchestra

Safe Injection Site

Automotive Industry

Cyber surveillance

Now try a different one of those. How does the meaning change?

How can we use this exercise to inform our approach to teaching students what they need to know  when learning and improving their reading comprehension?

If you are from outside of southwestern Ontario, you may have found some of the last examples equally mystifying as “The Blue Walloo”.

Students come to us with a wide variety of prior experiences. We have students who have lived in different countries, and different cultures within our own country. Some students are learning English as an additional language. The diversity in cultural and socio-economic backgrounds means that the prior knowledge and vocabulary they understand cannot be assumed. We need to actively build those into our teaching so that there is an accessible context from which students can reflect, build connections, make predictions and evaluate the validity of statements.

Cross-Curricular Considerations

This applies not only to language as a distinct subject area, but all academic areas. Relevant vocabulary needs to be introduced and prior knowledge developed in order to ensure that students are able to access the subject matter.

For example, word problems in math need to use examples that students can understand and relate with. One way of ensuring this is to enlist students to create and share their own word problems.

For content areas such as social studies and science, sharing introductory materials in a variety of reading levels for students to access, keeping an active glossary that is built upon as a class, and reviewing, summarizing and sharing in small and large groups collaboratively can help to provide the necessary prerequisites for content fluency. There are many great sites that can be used to this end, just a few of which include:

National Geographic Kids

Brittanica School Online

PebbleGo

Capstone Interactive Library

Newsela

CNN10

Culturegrams

Kids Info Bits (Gale)

Epic Books

BookFlix

Can Points of View

This is not by any stretch an exhaustive list, but should help provide a starting point. If you teach or attend school in Ontario, the Library Learning Commons site will have links to most of the above resources.