Teaching Sex Ed

As many of you know, I teach Reproductive and Sexual Health at Yalagüina’s high school. With my 10^th and 11^th grade classes (there are 2 classes of each at the high school, with about 30ish kids), I started out with easy topics, and we’ve worked from there: self-esteem, adolescence and puberty, the reproductive system and fertilization, the menstrual cycle, and teen pregnancy. At the end of every class, I leave time for questions. Because it’s hard asking questions in front of the class or face-to-face with the white girl, I hand out little slips of paper so that they can write out any questions and then give them to me in an anonymous way. The majority of the questions I get are actually really good- Can a woman who hasn’t had her first period get pregnant? Why do some pregnant women still menstruate? Sometimes the questions can be really repetitive of what I’ve already told them.

And then there are questions like these.

-Have you had sex? At what age?

-When the penis is small, does it go all the way to the uterus?

-Do I want to have sex?

-Can a teen with small breasts breastfeed well?

-Why as women are we so innocent and angelic?

-Why is it pleasurable to have oral sex?

-Are you married or engaged? Say it out loud to the class

-Is masturbation bad? Is it normal?

-Do I love her(or you, depends on how you translate it), yes or no?

And my favorite(asked by the same precocious guy that asked me if I was married or not): Are you an environmentalist or hippie, peace and love, because your necklace is cool(my peace sign necklace)?

I’m really putting these questions up more for shock-value than anything else. I don’t respond to the personal questions they ask me, nor do I respond to the ones I don’t really understand. One of the challenges of being the sex ed teacher is balancing my relationship with the students, both inside and outside the classroom. Because the environment of the classes I teach are much more open, relaxed and less rigid than the students’ normal classes, I’m not like their normal teachers. However, I am still not one of them, and this has caused me some problems outside of the classroom.

In general, I love teaching sex ed to them. Unlike in the states, I don’t have to restrain myself. I don’t know all the colloquial sayings for sexual health, so I do come off sounding very official. However, I have no problem telling them masturbation is normal or this is how oral sex works. I am definitely on the Knowledge is Power team. Or rather Knowledge is Health.