would i be if I were to ask my students to watch video footage of childbirth

[mrspir8]

I am due to start teaching a health & social care course in Sept, I tutor with young people who are "difficult", school leavers with no quals or school students not accessing education properly (skiving a lot) this is the first time I have done it this course. I am currently building lesson plans. One of the units I have to do is to get them to do a comparative study of cifferent childbirth options.

I have been looking into this today and I have seen lots of videos online of people giving birth, water, c section, normal hospital delivery and I dont know if I can justify asking my young women to watch these videos or not-i genuinely think given the correct videos it would be very useful but i also don't want lots of freaked out students because they are very disruptive anyway-that why they are being educated by me instead of the mainstream. It woud be groups of up to 8 at a time. It's hard to judge because I haven't met my students yet.

Yanbu imo. We watched this kind of thing at school, a few people fainted but funnily enough only the boys!

Sorry terrible grammar-i'm a teacher but no typist!

I teach relationships and sexuality ed to 17/18 year olds and I show the Robert Winston/BBC programme The Human Body: An Everyday Miracle. It follows one couple from conception to birth including showing the delivery from the business end IYKWIM. It has a PG rating and is very sensitively and beautifully shot and my students always give very positive feedback.

Ooh thankyou neverpush-I will look into that.

If you decide to go ahead one tip to avoid sniggering is to ask them to focus on one particular aspect of the birth e.g ask them to concentrate on what the midwife's does or how the birth partner behaves or the mum's breathing etc.

Oh I remember watching the giving birth film about 30 years ago and I fainted. I was always fainting. I fainted again at the abortion talk, the how to use a tampon talk, the how to disect a bulls eye ( an important life skill that one!)

My mum got fed up of the school ringing up to say that I had fainted again!!

YANBU

But please show them at least one normal physiological birth where the woman isn't lying on her back in a hospital bed.

I recommend the films on this site:
www.mybirthtv.com (not sure if that www address is correct - just google 'mybirthtv')

I don't see a problem with it - as long as it isn't yours!

We actually watched a film on our media production course called water baby window movie, by Bill Viola. Yeah we all squirmed (I've not got kids yet) but it was actually pretty interesting, and it's silent, if that's any help? I can find a link on Youtube if you'd like? YANBU, they're not 4 so I reckon they'd be able to cope.

Sorry, got my filmmakers mixed up, it's actually by Stan Brakhage.

We watched our first birth video in personal and social education age 11 so I think it's fine.

Iirc eleven year old boys were more freaked out by the size of the baby boys testicles when it had just been born

We watched a film of childbirth when I was 14 - it put me off for years!! They need to know what it is like as most of them will be either going through it or holding someone's hand while they go through it, at some point.

Thank you all, useful stuff here.

If I can put a few of them off as well then it's all good-my students are very high risk group for teenage pregnancy. Flippin 23 out of 60 last year.

i used to teach sex ed in an all boys, high % muslim/asian school, including video of woman giving birth. the boys were age 14.

if they can take it, so can the girls.

having taught large numbers of teens, i would also like to note that for some reason they don't seem to realise that having sex can lead to having a baby. they will happily agree that having a baby is a bad idea & they don't want to. they will even more happily have unprotected sex, cos 'it won't really get me pregnant'. and i taught the bright a level kids! (different school). 3 of them got pregnant the same year, made no difference to what their friends did!

LOL scrappydappydoo I used to work for a very airy fairy boss, invited her staff to her house for a drinky-poos after work one day (she was that type of person)... then she got the photo album out... and then the childbirth video. Wasn't exactly what people were expecting to see over a polite conversation!

Go for it! And I agree with trying to show the full variety of birth experiences.