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Sex education isn’t working and it’s clear that the
agencies responsible don’t know what to do about it. A spate of recent
reports and government announcements make this clear.
According to Health Protection Scotland, incidents of Chlamydia are at
an all-time high with a 7.6% increase during 2005. At the same time,
cases of gonorrhoea rose by 9.4% and herpes by 6%. Cases of syphilis
went up from 197 in 2004 to 205 last year.
Official statistics show a rising number of girls under 14 becoming
pregnant and the Government missing its target for cutting the under-18
pregnancy rate by 15 per cent from its 1998 level. The conception rates
for under-18s had risen by 40 per cent since 1999 and the teenage
pregnancy rate is still one of the highest in Western Europe.
The human tragedy surrounding this failure is bad enough. Even more
worrying is that experts and officials responsible for the sex education
curriculum and expenditure of millions of pounds, should have known that
failure was inevitable.
In the early 90’s I and others were warning that the approach to sex
education was flawed – and the arguments still hold today.
Firstly, there is no evidence that sex education works. In 1991 I could
find no references to empirical studies on sex education. Even when I
broadened my study to include any research on any of the so-called
“educations” (drugs education, for example), there was no evidence of
success. The limited evidence showed no change and indeed a worsening!
Pregnancies went up not down after sex education.
Can you imagine any other enterprise where the policy for millions of
people and expenditure of millions of pounds is based on no evidence?
Secondly, it is well understood in educational and especially
psychological circles that transmission of information and techniques is
never enough in solving human problems. Most of the sex education
programmes I studied consisted mostly of transmission of information. At
best, this approach was seen as a joke by most youngsters, many of whom
knew more about sex than their teachers. At worst, it gives false
confidence. If you explain the biology of reproduction and how to
prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases with contraception,
all this does is give false confidence and encourage the act. Thank
goodness I didn’t have sex education at school! There is a place for
natural and healthy fear.
Thirdly, how in 2006, can any educator or politician think that we can
change behaviour by telling people to behave? This is the favoured
approach in “faith schools”. Youngsters are told that sex at a young age
is wrong that if they indulge in it they are bad people and God will
punish them. Being told how to behave annoys people and they rebel by
doing the opposite. Of course, if they don’t believe in God the threat
is useless. However, according to a spokesman for the Department for
Education and Skills it looks as if more telling is on the way Beverley
Hughes will be emphasising the message that young people should delay
having sex.
Even alerting people to danger usually never work because the
implications are so remote. For example, you would think that the health
of one’s baby in the womb would be the highest priority of most pregnant
women. Yet, why do many pregnant women smoke when they are warned by
experts that “smoking harms your unborn baby”?
What’s the solution?
We need to think and act in terms of values education not sex education.
Values education is not about content – a set of values or about
indoctrinating. Values education is a process of open and deep
discussion during which youngsters come to their own realisation of what
“good” and “bad” for them. Many educators don’t believe that youngsters
can arrive at answers that are good for them. My experience is that with
enough time and honest discussion they are. Space in this article does
not permit a detailed discussion of how values education takes place,
but here is a brief summary.
A values education facilitator is skilled at Socratic questioning -
helping others to see for themselves the implications of their behaviour
- assessing values for long-term well-being of self and others.
Facilitators must encourage people to give reasons for their views (this
is the secret – having to justify).
In a values education session the facilitators' views carry no more
authority than the participants’ do. This means that facilitators do not
dictate what is right or wrong – but only what is right or wrong for
them personally - with reasons. Anyone in the group is entitled to state
why he or she would not respond in such-and-such a way, and other
members of the group are entitled to respectfully test the reasoning of
fellow-participants.
A consensus may emerge, but facilitators should ensure that this is not
forced and the consensus view should not be forced, explicitly or
implicitly, on any person. Naturally, many questions will arise from
this outline. However, there is encouraging evidence that a values
education approach works.
In the San Marcos school district in the USA a values education
programme reduced teenage pregnancies over two years from 147 to 20. In
the North Kansa City School system pregnancies at one school dropped
from 48 in 89/90 to 24 the next year.
Summary
Spending another £15million over three years to deliver improved access
to sexual health services, giving free condoms to children — possibly as
young as 12 — in sports halls, shops and swimming baths, and making
children more knowledgeable about abortion (some of the government
suggestions) are only treating the symptoms. A values education
approach, done properly, will cure much of the cause. All we need now
are government education departments and curriculum bodies to pay
attention to and think clearly about what is already known.
Bill Robb is a management and education consultant based in Aberdeen,
Scotland. For more information and resources on values education or to
invite Dr Robb to speak at your event go to www.valueseducation.co.uk.
This article was originally published as Sex, drugs and the Socratic
method in the TES October 13, 2006, page 19.
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