(Updated from a June 2021 post)
In Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) lessons, the Sexuality Education module is the module that many teachers find hardest to teach. Some teachers find it hard to talk openly about topics like pornography or abstinence without coming across as preachy. Others are afraid that students would ask difficult question that they do not know how to answer. The biggest fear may be that students’ values about relationships conflict with their own. Also, who is to say that a teacher is a moral authority on the subject?
In Singapore, CCE lessons are compulsory. However, for lessons related to sexuality education, parents have the right to opt their children out of the programme. Most parents who opt out do so on religious grounds. They worry that the lessons taught by secular schools may contradict what they teach at home. The Education ministry’s position on sexuality education is that parents are the primary educators of their children. This is a respectful policy to accommodate different beliefs values held by society. However, it also assumes that parents are taking up the responsibility of teaching their children the right values and mindset with regard to this issue. Here are three reflections I came away with after one semester of sexuality education lessons.
1. Sexuality Education Needs to Start At Home
I did a dip stick with my students once on how often their parents talked to them about things related to love, marriage and boy-girl relationships. Frequently- show me 5 fingers. Hardly- show me 1 finger. At a glance, most students put up 2 or 3 fingers- sometimes. However, about 20% of the class indicated that their parents hardly or had never talked to them about this topic. I was quite surprised and a little worried. Adolescence is a period of great hormonal changes and exploration about sexual identity. I have had students come to me saying they think they are gay, students with self-image issues, students who are already having sex etc. I had imagined that parents would be very anxious in wanting to ensure that their children have the right values and mindset about relationships. However, I suspect that many parents merely warn their children not to have a boyfriend/ girlfriend in Secondary school so as to focus on their studies.
With the increase in social comparisons among teens, poor self-concept is one of the most damaging factor to one’s future romantic relationships. When my daughter was 11, she remarked casually once that she thought she was not pretty. She was envious of a classmate who was fair and petite. That classmate was popular in class too. My daughter also started to be conscious of the amount of food she ate for fear of getting fat. I was shocked to hear that as my husband and I had never suggested any particular notions of beauty to her. We assured her that she was beautiful. Tanned skin and big girls were beautiful too. When young girls think they are not pretty enough to receive love, they may end up in relationships just to feed their need to feel worthy of love. Equally, boys can have self-image issues too and think they are not smart or attractive enough to to the opposite sex.
Many of my students also question the value of romance, marriage and children. So much of knowledge about how to date well and treat our spouse well come from observations of the adult world. However, when we don’t discuss and interpret adult behaviour, children may come up with their own assumptions about relationships. For example, I used to think that my dad is unloving towards my mum. I have never seen him hug her. He can be loud and rough in his language towards her. However, when I grew older, I found out that my mum actually felt my dad loves her very much. He may be the rough type. However, he would give my mum everything- his money, his house, his life even. If she ever needed a kidney transplant, my mum had no doubt that my dad would donate his to her. Thus, I learnt that my conclusions from observations of outward behaviour may not give the full picture of what a loving relationship looks like. Parents need to proactively insert conversations about self-image, love and marriage into daily life. Waiting till they think children are old enough may be too late.
2. Adults Need To Create A Non-Judgmental Space For Teenagers To Ask Tough Questions
In a class setting, it is difficult to hear student voices when it comes to sexuality education. Many may fear that their values will be judged negatively. Some may feel embarrassed. Here are two activities that have worked well to get students’ views and questions.
a) Online anonymous polls. I used Mentimeter a lot and kept the responses to myself in order to get a sense of what students were thinking and asking.
b) ‘Fear in a Bag’ activity. I got students to write down what they feared on post-it notes. Then, they dropped all their notes into a bag. Next, I randomly distributed one note to each student and had them write down one positive response to the fear or suggestions. I then collected all the notes back, looked through them and added more positive suggestions. This activity tapped on peer support where students saw what relationship fears their friends had and offered helpful suggestions. In the process, I could also check whether any students wrote nonsense to their friends and then edit them. In the next class, I would address some key fears and share positive ways to overcome them.
Teenagers are dying to ask questions. Here are some common questions I gathered:
‘Why get married? Isn’t singlehood more carefree? Just dating for fun is enough.’
‘Why should I wait till after secondary school to start dating?’
‘What if no one likes me when I grow up?
‘How do I know if he/she is the one?’
Under the cloak of anonymity, it is much easier to ask difficult questions, especially those on topics like masturbation, STD and pornography.
At home, I think it is important to be open with our children and brave to broach these subjects with them. When my kids were very young, I used technical terms to describe their body parts. I taught them good touch and bad touch. As they got older, questions related to sex were approached factually. When I didn’t have the language, I learnt from books with a Christian perspective to explain topics like sex, gender and identity. So my children are quite open to asking me questions. Parents just need to be open, factual and non-judgmental in conversations. There is so much misinformation out there about sex. If parents do not present the truth, children will accept the myths out there as facts.
What is tougher, in my opinion, is transmitting the right values. Sometimes, in our bedtime conversations, I would randomly ask my daughter what kind guys she finds attractive. After hearing her out, I will ask her what the most important qualities are in a husband- his looks, brains or character. From there, I can then focus our conversation on how to value a person. I find this approach a good one to take. To get children first to discuss what people see on the outside or what the media presents today. After that, to ask questions about what value is the right one to take. What I learnt from talking to my children is that they want to know the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. They want to be challenged to think about what kind of relationships to build.
3. Personal Stories Make A Stronger Connection to Teenagers Than Lesson Objectives
I discovered that whenever I start my lesson by dishing out the lesson objectives, students were less interested than if I start with a personal story. Students were more focused on listening to what I had to share about my past relationship experiences. It could be due partly to students’ curiosity about their teachers’ personal lives. However, it could also be because all humans desire connection with others and learn about life by making sense of others’. The most powerful stories are those about pain and overcoming. I once shared with my class about my broken family and my parents horrendous fights when I was growing up. I shared about how I used to fear marriage and didn’t feel I could ever trust anyone enough to marry him. Now that I am happily married, I also share the journey that led me to where I am now. That day, my students were all ears and riveted to my story.
Young people need to hear real life stories about love to understand what it is and what it is not. When I taught about healthy and unhealthy dating, I brought in the story of Rachel Lim, a girl who was beaten up badly in an abusive relationship. Her case was covered in the Straits Times. The boyfriend who beat her up was a doctor. It challenged the notion that highly educated people would not exhibit violent behaviour. For the topic on Marriage, stories from long married couples were shared. Through these stories, I hoped that students could pick up some nuggets of wisdom about respect, commitment and sacrifice in marriage.
Finally, I also learnt that students need to see hope in the stories in order to find the resilience in overcoming relationship challenges. Many students today come from broken or single-parent families. For them to believe that they can have a happy and lasting marriage, they need to learn from both positive and negative experiences. Stories about married couples who mend rifts and discord need to be shared so young people can learn how reconciliation happens.
Rachel Lim’s story was impactful because she shared how she overcame her depression after the abuse and how she found love again. Rachel demonstrated how fear and trust issues with men could be overcome.
All in all, I’m glad to have the opportunity to teach sexuality education. It made me reflect on how to better transmit values to young people and also helped me approach the topic more proactively with my own children.