Sorry, I got really excited when I saw the headlines.
Check it out on Philstar.com
Informed Decisions
The Philippines has turned over a new leaf and is finally taking progressive strides towards providing young people access to sex education in its school system.
Bravo!
Finally, law makers are taking action towards educating teenagers about sex, reproductive health, relationships, and their bodies. 2010 is truly a landmark year that marks a very important time for Filipino youth across the country.
Finally, many conservative voices have been stifled by the persistence of teachers, political groups, and health advocates to provide young people with comprehensive sex education. For a country that has been overcome with conservative direction for many years, reading the headlines “Sex Education Granted in Public Schools” is truly monumental.
However, as the school system emerges into these new social changes, a few things should be considered before the implementation of the pilot program. First, is to shed assumption that parents are incapable of educating their children about sex. Though the school has taken it upon themselves to teach young people the sciences of their bodies and how illness can spread, parents should not shed the responsibility of being a part of their child’s sex education. The Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) should consider this as an important factor as they begin to formulate their sex education curriculum for their schools. Instead of encouraging students to participate in sex education merely in class, the pilot program should also work in conjunction with some form of parent involvement. This will educate the student as well as their parent in how to answer questions and determine what issue matters the most to them. If teenagers feel comfortable talking about what they learned in their sex education classes to their parents, then parents can have a better chance of mitigating future risks to their child’s health and well being (e.g. unintended pregnancies, sex before marriage, sexually transmitted illness).
Second, as DepEd begins to train teachers in conducting these pilot classes, one important lesson that should be emphasized is the fine line between opinion and fact. Teaching young people about sex education is a very sensitive subject and can easily perpetuate the bias of those teaching the subject. For example, I had a teacher in my sex education class say, “Having sex at a young age is bad for you because of x, y, and z reasons.” Rather than teaching in a way that forces students to adopt such a point of view, my teacher should have framed her lesson in a way that allowed us to think for ourselves. For example, the question my teacher could have posed to the class could have been, “Based on current statistics, more and more people are having sex at a younger age, why do you think that is so?” My classmates’ answers could have varied between “media, pressures from friends and boyfriends, pop culture, etc.” From there my class could have had a more in depth discussion about the issues and pressures we were facing, without being personally judged for our questions.
As the new school year begins, the anticipated change in the public school curriculum is a turning point in DepEd, one that the Philippines should be proud of. Finally, important measures are being taken to help young people make informed decisions about their relationships, health, and choices.