Rape and sex education

Merlin, sorry she's not 10 years old, she's in year 10 so is 15. She is perfectly aware of what rape is and teenagers are the people we need to be challenging about this sort of stuff imo. If she'd been 10years old I would not have gone into such detail about why what she's said was so wrong, I would just have made sure she knew it was an unacceptable thing to say.

GoodbutNotOutstanding, if it was just a child joke that would be nothing.. the problem is that the 10 year old girl will grow up thinking rape is something to laugh about or something that you get if you misbehave. In boys' cases, they get the idea they're allowed to do it if... etc etc.. insert whatever myth you can think of.

Merlin - I think you and I must live in similar parts of the country. I had to tell a year 10 girl off today for telling someone they were going to be raped, just because they got an answer wrong. She (and others in the class) genuinely believed that I was over reacting completely because 'it's only a phrase, miss, it doesn't mean anything'. So we abandoned the Maths we were doing (display work as it's end of term) and had quite an informative 10 minutes where I explained to them at length what was wrong with that comment. They asked questions and I think I debunked a few rape myths for the whole class in those few minutes. It's a shame they'll go home and continue to live in the society that led them to believe them in the first place.

I was never taught the meaning of the word "rape" at school. I remember asking a family friend's DD when I was about twelve because I had heard it on the radio.

I do think there should be separate sessions for girls and boys about the right to say no/the importance of gaining a yes. However it shouldn't be completely ignored the other way around, because some students likely will find themselves in an opposite way round situation at some point.

Passmethecrisps, interesting posts and thanks for posting in this thread!!

I'm happy that in some schools in Scotland children are taught by someone as professional and competent as you. Where I live (up north), rape myths are still so alive that you can hear teenagers saying "oh she was a bitch, she deserved that" (referring to someone who was raped!).

Sorry for the essay

The school I work at has specialist providers who come in from the local sexual health clinic to teach our students. They do varying levels of intensity from year 7 up to 11 so that it's all age-appropriate. I've seen them at work and they're fantastic.

This is what's needed more, I think. My own sex ed sucked. It was seriously pants, I learnt everything I know from reading and reading and reading some more. Not every teenager does that.

Our providers are genuinely fantastic - not only do they cover the biology but they also allow any question to be asked - and debunk myths that way - but they focus equally on respect and boundaries. For every five minutes they spend on the biology and STIs they spend another 5 on respecting each others' boundaries and being confident enough to say if you don't like something, and also on detecting and respecting how the other person is feeling.

This is exactly what we need more of. Every school should have this programme. My only (minor) issue is they also do workshops for just girls along these lines and self esteem and saying no (called 'Protective Behaviours') but not one for boys that's along the lines of teaching them about rape being 'any unwanted penetration' and debunking the myths that boys also hear all the time (you all know the ones I mean!).

Passmethecrisps, your programmes sound great. Thank you for what you do.

At my dd's school had a program called "love shouldn't hurt" which covered physical and emotional violence. It was brilliant.

I do think something that needs to be taught is that when you are having sex, the person (or people) you are having sex with need to be enthusiastically participating. Not just lying there and definitely not unconscious, silently crying, or trying to get away. Teach kids that if the other person isn't showing clear signs of enjoyment and offering verbal encouragement to you to continue, you stop and find out what's wrong. And that if the other person has said something like 'Oh go on then, if you really have to' then that is NOT enthusiastic participation and you should stop and apologise NO MATTER WHAT.

I know for a fact that the teaching of pshe is not as good in my school as it sounds in crisps's lessons. Our pshe is taught by the heads of year, some of whom are very good, others rather embarrassed by the whole thing. The kids do not take any of it seriously and would be hard pushed to tell me anything about any of their lessons (possibly they can't remember any Maths from my lessons either).

I would love for pshe/sex ed to be taught consistently well but that is far from the case. The 3 schools I have taught in have had very different methods, from one school where it is considered a specialist subject with 1 fantastic teacher who spends her entire timetable teaching pshe very well and the kids being very knowledgable about sex, contraception, rape, etc, to another where pshe was sort of shoehorned into a form tutor's responsibilities with no guidance about how to go about teaching it, just a basic list of things to cover. My current school is somewhere between the two. I know I was well out of my comfort zone teaching pshe as a form tutor, as I had received no training in delivering that sort of lesson, I am a maths teacher, we don't do much in the way of debate and moral thought in our everyday teaching. I don't think I did too bad a job of it, but I certainly wasn't as good as someone with more training would ahve been.

since i have been posting here my mind has been alterd on a number of things, but most of all where rape myths are concerd. I'm 43 and diddnt have the advantage of receiving crisps or one of her compemories tutalege. seems to me the kids growing up now have a much better education ,teaching on an emotional level.

i'm just suggesting that we have made an advancement.

Crikey! Can I just clarify my comment about consistency of primary sex ed? I just re-read it and it sounds really critical which wasn't meant. I was getting at the fact that in Scotland we have pretty clear guidance on what to cover. I am not sure of primaries have the same luxury

garlic you're making me

Probably my lessons on anything else are naff to the max

Interesting discussion. Agree about rape in war (not as part of SE) and would want more awareness of military violence against civilians in general, too. I am still sometimes shocked by news of things that were done in historical wars - salting the earth, scorching the earth, child-culling, all sort of atrocities - purely to keep enemy populations down.

I'm LOVING your lessons, crisps!

i think that in the context of sex education talk of rape should centre around consent, pressure, respect and assertiveness in sexual situations.

i also think that rape as an act of war for example should be treated in history / politics / modern studies classes and not ignored because it's too uncomfortable.

i don't think rape as torture or war should be brought into sex education classes but if the only concepts of rape that teenagers know about are linked to sexual attraction and sexual impulses that gives a misleading picture of rape as a whole.

Good question - I think I would ask them to look at a picture of her and tell me what they thought when they looked at her. What do they see? You will probably get a real variation.

I teach from 11 years old - I am not 100% how consistent sex lessons are at primary.

electric as an example we do one lesson where you get all the kids to shake the hands of ten others in the class. Then you pick one (pre-warned!) and say "oh no! Bobby has handypandyitis which spreads by unprotected handshaking" you get the kids who shook Bobby's hand to sit down because they no have handypandyitis. Then you check with those who are left did they shake the hand of someone who shook Bobby's hand. It usually ends up with most of the class infected.

You then produce 5 rubber gloves and give it to random pupils and repeat. Naturally the kids don't want to shake the hands of anyone without a glove on. This, obviously is a neat analogy for condoms. It's fun and very visual.

We also have disucssion about sex as a positive development with someone you love and trust. The BIG challenge for them is knowing when love and trust is there. Hard to teach that bit.

We link with nurses and alcohol counsellors who do further no holds barred lessons on the impact of alcohol on decision making and safety.

We do contraceptive lessons from s2 where we cover the full gamut. Out come the polystyrene willies. We do this yearly adapting it gradually. We have 'beer goggles' which make your vision go funny. We use these to replicate drunkenness.

I say all of this and I am not sure how many non-PSE teachers would know that we teach it.

electric would that come under media impact and resilience?

I think the matter of Beyonce shaking her stuff is a great example for kids of self-belief, confidence etc Vs acting in a certain way to gain acceptance. Kids need to be able to debate these things out loud.

Hand on heart as a parent - I wouldn't want to know like that - it was a Catholic school (like you hadn't guessed) a the boy was terrified with tales and threats of prosecution (by school). Don't know as much about the girl.

I do know SS was disgusted at the teacher as were his peers. He asked me and DH what we thought - and both of us just said we hoped he felt he could come to us - but we disagreed with the schools stance (it led to some very open conversations).