Sex education in primary schools

[Eccy Beach 11]

On 30/03/2019 at 11:54, Michael_W said:

I'm not quite sure what needs teaching, if kids are growing up in a diverse world then they will hardly need introducing to it ….. it's the norm surely !

Maybe times have changed but lots of people my age grew up quite rounded regardless of how we learnt things, neither my parents nor my school had to teach me specifics they simply taught me right from wrong, respect and how to think for myself, modern day nannying seems to have cause more problems than it solves IMHO !

I started primary school in the 80s, off the top of my head here are some societal views/attitudes from back then, some of which have been addressed by 'the nanny state':

 

- AIDS (formerly known as GRID) being considered a 'gay epidemic', or another extremely racist explanation of the origins of the HIV virus.

- Drink driving (four in the city, six in the country).

- Not wearing a seat belt.

- Overt racism, for example at football grounds (we've not cracked this but we're a lot further than we were in the 80s).

- Overt sexism, for example sexual harassment/discrimination in the workplace (as above, not resolved but I believe a lot better than where we were).

 

I'm not going to spend too much time racking my brains for more examples but I hope this makes my point. These issues have been tackling largely using education as a means to change attitudes.

[Halibut 12]

24 minutes ago, Eccy Beach said:

I started primary school in the 80s, off the top of my head here are some societal views/attitudes from back then, some of which have been addressed by 'the nanny state':

 

- AIDS (formerly known as GRID) being considered a 'gay epidemic', or another extremely racist explanation of the origins of the HIV virus.

- Drink driving (four in the city, six in the country).

- Not wearing a seat belt.

- Overt racism, for example at football grounds (we've not cracked this but we're a lot further than we were in the 80s).

- Overt sexism, for example sexual harassment/discrimination in the workplace (as above, not resolved but I believe a lot better than where we were).

 

I'm not going to spend too much time racking my brains for more examples but I hope this makes my point. These issues have been tackling largely using education as a means to change attitudes.

A good point well made.

[Michael_W 11]

7 hours ago, Eccy Beach said:

I started primary school in the 80s, off the top of my head here are some societal views/attitudes from back then, some of which have been addressed by 'the nanny state':

 

- AIDS (formerly known as GRID) being considered a 'gay epidemic', or another extremely racist explanation of the origins of the HIV virus.

- Drink driving (four in the city, six in the country).

- Not wearing a seat belt.

- Overt racism, for example at football grounds (we've not cracked this but we're a lot further than we were in the 80s).

- Overt sexism, for example sexual harassment/discrimination in the workplace (as above, not resolved but I believe a lot better than where we were).

 

I'm not going to spend too much time racking my brains for more examples but I hope this makes my point. These issues have been tackling largely using education as a means to change attitudes.

I think your actually missing the point, this thread is about what is taught to Primary school kids, much of what you posted about was not, in fact most of that stuff was and has been built on media campaigns aimed at adults !

So if you could rack your brains a little bit more, I would be interested to know a bit more specifically what 'you' think needs teaching to kids of primary school age.

I am ( on here allegedly) a right wing, gammon, racist, sexist, homophobic dinosaur of a grandparent, my grandkids (two of which attend primary school), are, growing up with mixed race, same sex marriage and gay relatives, I am interested to know what you think they may or may not need teaching.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Michael_W

[Eccy Beach 11]

19 hours ago, Michael_W said:

I think your actually missing the point, this thread is about what is taught to Primary school kids, much of what you posted about was not, in fact most of that stuff was and has been built on media campaigns aimed at adults !

So if you could rack your brains a little bit more, I would be interested to know a bit more specifically what 'you' think needs teaching to kids of primary school age.

I am ( on here allegedly) a right wing, gammon, racist, sexist, homophobic dinosaur of a grandparent, my grandkids (two of which attend primary school), are, growing up with mixed race, same sex marriage and gay relatives, I am interested to know what you think they may or may not need teaching.

I think you're missing my point - I accept many of those issues may have been dealt with by education in a broader sense of educating society, although I'm pretty sure I got taught about a few of them at school.

 

'I' think children at primary school should be taught about the diversity of our society and taught tolerance in relation to those who are different to them, be that race, religion, sexual orientation to mention a few. Do I think they need to know the mechanics of sex (straight, gay, bi or otherwise), no, but that was my original point, people are going off alarming that primary school kids are being taught about gay sex which to put it bluntly is a lie.

 

In none of my posts have I called you any of those things, I am simply stating my view that children of primary school age should be taught to be tolerant and to do that they need to have some awareness of 'different people' and I'm challenging this notion that teachers in leather gimpsuits are teaching six year olds how to be gay.

 

I work in child protection and see the consequences of children, some still in primary school, not benefiting from decent PHSE, which includes age-appropriate RSE.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Eccy Beach

[Dozer 13]

Nicely explained, EB.

 

Could you help with acronyms at the end? PHSE? RSE?

 

[Michael_W 11]

3 hours ago, Eccy Beach said:

I think you're missing my point - I accept many of those issues may have been dealt with by education in a broader sense of educating society, although I'm pretty sure I got taught about a few of them at school.

 

'I' think children at primary school should be taught about the diversity of our society and taught tolerance in relation to those who are different to them, be that race, religion, sexual orientation to mention a few. Do I think they need to know the mechanics of sex (straight, gay, bi or otherwise), no, but that was my original point, people are going off alarming that primary school kids are being taught about gay sex which to put it bluntly is a lie.

 

In none of my posts have I called you any of those things, I am simply stating my view that children of primary school age should be taught to be tolerant and to do that they need to have some awareness of 'different people' and I'm challenging this notion that teachers in leather gimpsuits are teaching six year olds how to be gay.

 

I work in child protection and see the consequences of children, some still in primary school, not benefiting from decent PHSE, which includes age-appropriate RSE.

Surely it was the older generations, some of mine included maybe, that would have benefitted most from that sort of education, these day's however young kids grow up in such a diverse society, should what they see all around them on a  daily basis mean they won't have the same attitudes of previous generations, or is the so called desire for this sort of education suggesting that our society is actually struggling to come to terms with the diversity and differences ?

I think the speed at which society is changing, some of it forced in many ways, means no matter what you teach people at any particular time, those values are prone to change at some point in the future by the next generation that starts to think differently, is society trying too hard to create some sort of Utopia that can never be achieved because more changes will follow and people will find personal prejudices elsewhere  ?

[catmiss 12]

8 hours ago, Michael_W said:

Surely it was the older generations, some of mine included maybe, that would have benefitted most from that sort of education, these day's however young kids grow up in such a diverse society, should what they see all around them on a  daily basis mean they won't have the same attitudes of previous generations, or is the so called desire for this sort of education suggesting that our society is actually struggling to come to terms with the diversity and differences ?

I think the speed at which society is changing, some of it forced in many ways, means no matter what you teach people at any particular time, those values are prone to change at some point in the future by the next generation that starts to think differently, is society trying too hard to create some sort of Utopia that can never be achieved because more changes will follow and people will find personal prejudices elsewhere  ?

I think you’re missing the point here. Most primary school aged children are influenced by their adult family members views, attitudes and prejudices so much so that even nursery school children can  reiterate racist, homophophic or sexist views. Surely trying to teach children the value of appreciating and acceptance of diversity will mean future generations will me more tolerant of future divesity and less likely to pass prejudice on to their own offspring  

[Lex Luthor 10]

18 hours ago, Dozer said:

Nicely explained, EB.

 

Could you help with acronyms at the end? PHSE? RSE?

 

Personal Health and Social Education, and Relationships and Sex Education. 

[Michael_W 11]

12 hours ago, catmiss said:

I think you’re missing the point here. Most primary school aged children are influenced by their adult family members views, attitudes and prejudices so much so that even nursery school children can  reiterate racist, homophophic or sexist views. Surely trying to teach children the value of appreciating and acceptance of diversity will mean future generations will me more tolerant of future divesity and less likely to pass prejudice on to their own offspring  

So if you don't mind me asking, what specifically do 'you' think should be emphasised to primary school age kids ?

It's all very well wanting to change attitudes, but in my opinion, as a society(and we live in a very tolerant one actually), the more we have attempted to indoctrinate tolerance, the less people seem to be happy with the results (current issues seem to highlight this).

The more diverse we have become, the more we find to be intolerant about, if social media particularly is anything to go by, is this not proving my earlier point about people finding prejudice in other ways ?

It seems to me that people are reactionary and as a society we will never be happy no matter how much we preach about tolerance we will look for disagreement, about anything and everything, it's become a social obsession.

I personally think we would be better focussing on mutual respect at primary school education level, and of course the required educational benefits of reading, writing , learning to work things out etc … rather than over emphasising what 'adults' recognise as differences !