Sex education for children

Someone in the Evening Mail put my view across very well.

We need to support the curiosity of children.

I remember my time in the air raid shelter at the bottom of someone's garden at the age of perhaps four or five with possibly three other children of similar age. For a short time we loved playing doctors, which consisted of one lying in the middle and the others 'operating'. It obviously made a big impression as we had one young girl who was very keen to show us her genitals - possibly to get a view of ours.

I can remember no more than great interest that she was different to me. There were no unpleasant vibes that I can remember - we were just innocently curious. The question "Why are we different?" didn't come up - we just were.

I believe this is where education goes wrong in our culture. We feel the need to convey facts rather than to satisfy curiosity.

A good teacher who is a good listener and who tries hard to 'get inside the head' of the student, will try to find out just what the child is asking.

This can be done by the teacher asking questions rather than providing facts. Getting children to think hard - as hard as they want to. Together with the group one can arrive at a fairly good idea of an answer.

Question after question - If you think this why then does that happen?

We were taught to teach our whole lesson by asking questions and guiding a class to finding the answers - in books - from others and for themselves - to the level of answer that satisfied them- each student to a different level. We then tried to help the students to assess the validity of the facts available. By doing this well, the motivation to satisfy most curiosity was sky high and students remembered very well.

It is this kind of education in schools that I will be trying to promote in Cumbria wherever possible!