I was on the way back to my crib from a relief class, dude, I got tons of relief class, when suddenly I thought what a nice idea it would be to drop by and check out Ivan's lesson. I've been meaning to observe his lesson, actually, and since he was already prepared for an observation with his lecturer then, who didn't quite make it, I walked into 4 White to find Ivan already into the Production stage and Dinesh there. I slipped into the chair right next to him.
I sat at the back of the class, observing, thinking about the 3P stages and what to eat for lunch when one of the smartest and definitely noisiest girl in the class, Kesha*, approached us. The pupils were supposed to get into groups and discuss something. Ivan was busy attending to the other groups.
"Teacher, I have something to ask."
Dinesh and I looked at her.
"What is the meaning of...." then she giggled and shied away. Not even a minute later, she came back.
"Teacher, what is s-e-s...x?" She swallowed the last word.
There you have it, the million dollar question.
"My friend said. What does it mean, teacher? They said it is when a girl and a boy in a room...."
Dinesh and I looked at each other, holding laughters, giving the we-better-stop-this look.
"Well, sex is something like gender. When you see the word sex is forms and all, it means like, I am a woman while Mr. Dinesh is a man." I quickly said, not feeling bad for lying, for I wasn't. I was just saying half the truth.
"Haaa..yess.." Dinesh said affirmatively to my answer. The girl then went back to her seat.
Later, much later, in the language department, the same story would be told by Mr. Hussein, who said he loves my answer.
"Nahhhh...teacher said wrong laaa! It's not what you said just now.” I heard the girl told her friends.
Not so long after that she came again holding a book about a mouse or something. I prayed hard that the last thing I want was the girl founding the word “sex” from the book.
“But teacher, they said different.”
She was referring to the girls in her group, one of them being the most talkative one in class. I knew she must've gone that from her.
She was too shy to say it, so she opened the book. I was so nervous, wondering what a book for children on a mouse has something to do with sex. If she got the word from the book, then I wouldn't know which will be worse, reading a sentence like "the mice have sex" or explaining to her what is sex.
As she opened it, I was appalled and shocked to see, in pencil-written words,
Turn out she couldnt say the words out, so she wrote it down. I didn't know what to do, so I told her it is something for adult. Not for young children like her. She left.
Well, the best response, all fellow future educators, would be,
"Go home and ask your mother, we have a lesson to carry on."
This according to Mr. Hussein, for anything you say to a child may backfire to you. Though I think if one day, when I finally have children, having a cute little version of me asking,
"Mom, what is sex? My English teacher told me to ask you,"
That would be pretty darn weird too innit?
Anyways, it is the parents' role to educate the children about this. All the "the birds and the bees" talk. Seriously you can't leave everything to the teachers and school. It is a relief to know that some parents do play their parts. In a different class, I asked students to form words from the letters in "AEROPLANE", and they came out with the word "rape". I was so nervous at the thought of explaining such a brutal word to a class of 9-years-olds girls. Thankfully, when I asked them if they knew the meaning, they said it was a very bad crime.
Sex education is, seriously, very important. Some teenagers believe that sperms can seep through clothing *facepalm*
Btw,here's a pic of Mr Dinesh and me discussing sex education over lunch. See that wide grin of mine? SexEd is officially my fave subject. Blah.
*name changed for protection =P
BTW. I googled "sex education syllabus", here's one of my findings:
