Where is Sex Education Failing?

There is much said about sex education, where it is failing and what we need to do and while I do feel that this is a very complex problem, I did read something the other day that made me think about what we could be missing.

I was reading Predictably Irrational, a fantastic book that talks about all kinds of things….

In one particular chapter the author was talking about how we can never really say how we will react in certain situations. To prove the point he did an experiment. I will spare you the details, but in essence he asked a group of students a series of questions about what they would and would not do sexually. He then asked them to get aroused and during this arousal they were asked the same questions. Lets just say it involved a computer in a protective plastic sheet. What he found was very intriguing. Things that the students said they would never do, they were open to doing while under arousal. Things they were unsure about doing, they would certainly do under arousal and people they did not find attractive before were suddenly very attractive!

He concluded that what we said we would or would not do definitely changed when we were aroused, and that drumming in the “Just Say No” message would be better replaced with helping children learn to handle extreme emotions.

So they real problem is that children, or anyone, behave differently and more irrationally when aroused. This has a lot to do with why abstinence is so unsuccessful.

So what we really need to be talking about is the emotion; how it feels to be aroused and how you may think differently, about how to handle that. While I appreciate that this is a challenge, I think we need to be truthful and honest to give them the best possible chance. Helping them deal with other emotions like anger may help them have the skills to deal with the much stronger emotion of arousal.

It is certainly something I will be talking to my children about. What about you, what do you think?

How Education is failing our children

As many of you know I am passionate about our education changing to be more in line with how modern day youth thinks and acts. One of my objectives is to create a “youth friendly policy” for schools. I was laughing out loud last night when I watched the news and heard the Head Teachers association saying how “un-fair” it was their schools are to be given grades, saying this would not show the full picture as things are much more complication. They can say this and continue to test our children and give them grades – seems hypocritical to me. one rule for one and another for someone else.

Anyway the other day I found this on the wonderful Bea Fields blog so I though I would share it.  I have shared my favourite three and the rest can be found on her blog.

The 5 Key Ways I Believe Our Education System Needs To Change So That Future Generations Can Succeed

1) Stop competing and start collaborating in the classroom.

Kids are so competitive right now. Who can get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, etc. is the big competitive factor. I am not going online to pull up a bunch of research to make my point here, because I know that people learn much better and faster if they are collaborating with others. When you are working in teams of 5-7 people, you learn new ideas, you get new resources and you aren’t constantly frustrated trying to find the answer when it’s already sitting inside another person’s brain or network. I believe that “teaching/learning pods” are where we need to move and just get rid of these lecture halls filled with 200-300 kids who are sitting in the classroom with their laptops open on Twitter and Facebook or who are sitting in class texting, because the teacher is standing up in front of the class lecturing like Charlie Brown’s teacher (womp, womp, womp…sounds a bit like this.)

2) Stop lecturing and start innovating.

I think I am harping a bit on the lecture mode of teaching, but it is ridiculous. Kids are hearing about 20% of what the teacher says, but if you put kids in a true experiential process where they have to come up with their own answers by designing a new product, service or piece of technology, they will learn the skills they need to learn. You can then go back and support the activity/innovation with a few notes and facts but only after the kids have been fully engaged in an activity that seals the learning. Once they fall in love with the innovation, kids are usually eager to then know the facts of the process. Get their attention first by throwing them into a learning activity that will get them engaged and excited about learning the “test material”.

3) Stop using textbooks and start using technology.

Kids are saying they spend $300-500 on textbooks they never open. Then why are we continuing to use them? Kids can now go online and gather their information. So, if you have to use a textbook, then get it online and break it into bits and bites so that the information can be easily digested. I keep hearing “Well…these kids need to sit down and learn to read a book”, but they AREN’T DOING IT! Most Gen Ys are saying they go online to read and while they love going into bookstores, they get about 75% of their information from online libraries, articles passed around on Facebook and by text messaging.

Read The 5 Key Ways I Believe Our Education System Needs To Change So That Future Generations Can Succeed