What IS Sex Education?

It's the start of another school year.  Kids are going back to the classrooms, probably with some vacation hangover but generally with a lot of excitement to see if they are still in the same section as their old gang or who has grown as tall as they have over the summer break.

For the authorities, there has been a controversy over offering sex education in the public schools.  The Department of Education is pushing it.  Religious leaders are against it.  Exactly what is the argument about anyway?

If by sex education, the policy makers are referring to the methods of having sex then maybe I agree with the churches.  I don't see the point of showing kids graphic images of different sexual positions.  Emphasizing the act itself, I believe, will heighten curiosity which might lead to promiscuity or early pregnancy.

However, a recent news report showed a DepEd official saying that they are changing the term to gender education.  That then is a different story.  If they mean to discuss things like the physical differences between males and females, what happens during puberty, the reproductive cycles, and stuff like that then I'm all for it.

I spent my elementary years in a convent school where we were all girls in our classes.  I moved to a government school for high school.  In these institutions, I learned about menstruation and what can happen because of it.  We were given seminars about the different methods of contraception, both natural and artificial, as well as their differing effects.  We were also told that abortion was illegal and premarital sex can have moral and legal consequences.

In Biology classes, we studied the baby's growth from conception to birth, complete with pictures of the fetus.  With that, we also learned the role of the males in pregnancy and how a baby can look like either parent.  We also discussed sexually transmitted diseases, especially how one can acquire them.

Are these things part of the controversy?  Do you mean these things are not part of public school education?

Exactly what are they talking about anyway?

Trainor's Training

I would have blogged this sooner but we had an insect attack two nights running. Anyway . . .

Last Friday and Saturday, I attended a workshop seminar entitled Conducting Investigatory Projects organized and conducted by the Biology Teachers Association of the Philippines. Naturally, the projects were oriented to biology.

There were a series of topics on how to handle different types of subjects like plants, rats, brid eggs, etc. After each lecture, we were given the chance to try it out ourselves. It was a bit intimidating because I have been out of the lab for so long. My exposure since I left ITDI was lamost entirely on the business side. I had other people (mainly my students at the National Computer Center or programmers in the offices that I worked in) do most of the technical stuff.

Frankly, I had fun. I got bitten by a mouse I was trying to subdue. I got to use a pipetor with several tips at once. One of the lecturers gave us washable gloves that we could take home (it had a nice feel by the way). We toured several of the labs under the UP Institute of Biology (during which I bumped into two of our students who happen to be doing summer internship there). I even won a couple of books on biotechnology and biology researches.

Teachers do need to be updated with subject and technique.