Sex, Education and Development

I was clearly born a hopeless, incurable but happy romantic and I cannot say that it bothers me. For some reason, I never read any of the popular Mills and Boon novels in my day, even though many young people at the time got their sense of love and relationships through those stories. Yet I had and still have an idealized view of the world and of relationships.

Anyhow, as I experienced life, the need for the subject of sex to be openly, systematically and objectively discussed and studied (yes I meant studied), especially with and by younger people became more and more important to me.  It had occurred to me along the way that not knowing many things concerning the subject was an injury that could have had much more dire consequences than it may have had on me, had the universe not conspired in my favour. Take this short story of a young lady for instance: 

It was in the mid-eighties. She was in her mid-teens and she was a virgin. She had no knowledge of condoms and whether they were even a thing, much less about the foaming tablet until she agreed to be the community bad boy’s girlfriend. She had no idea what it meant to be someone’s girlfriend, but this boy was a few years older and seemingly wiser, plus he was well known and quite a charmer.  

 

At the time, her shapely body was taking form and many of the boys in her community, including much     older males were already making comments about her body, telling her she was pretty, throwing sexual     gestures and jokes her way and in various ways, reminding her daily of her sexual appeal and their dark     desires. It was only a matter of time that she would fall into one of these arms. So, despite her naivety,      she sensed there was something sexual required of her as a girlfriend. To her mind, why not the charming boy in the community.  

 

When he took her to an empty house one night, she followed dutifully and strangely, without fear. The experience was neither exciting nor pleasurable. The pain was significant but bearable. The boy, obviously more experienced, knew about the pain and reassured her.  He had pushed a tablet into her and had told her it would prevent her from getting pregnant. She believed him and took his word for what it was worth. Luckily it was over before she knew what was to be done. The pain did come and she saw some blood later but that was all there was to it. She did not get pregnant.  Not a soul ever found out how she got her first lesson in sex and who taught it. She did not get pregnant and that was all that mattered. And she was in her mid teens.

In my part of the globe, there is continuing resistance to sex education in schools. At home, it is still mostly taboo to speak about such things even among adults. Some conspiracy theories even claim sex education is a ploy to spread the reach of the ‘rainbow’. Suppose there is any truth to that, should that not be more reason why we should be deliberate about talking; not simply about faith and morals, but about lived experiences including about sex and their social, economic, physical, emotional, psychological implications, good, bad or ugly?

Several years back, my son then about 5 or 6 asked me why his “willy” was much smaller than that of his dad. By the way, we long ditched the pseudonym for the actual word ‘penis’. He was visibly upset about the unfairness of that particular resource allocation. Rather than shut him down I explained, that it grew with age, then I took steps to make some changes in our domestic practices. Over the years, we have spoken about sexual topics including condoms. I concede that on one occasion when I tried to talk him into learning how to use a condom, he protested. What he did not know was that I needed the lesson myself. Good thing is, at least the subject was not off the table. When he was told at church that it was better to abstain from sex until after marriage and saw his (relatively) young church mate get married to an equally young woman, he came home to have a conversation with me. We opened up the subject of marriage before sex and questioned the rationale, concluding that it was a question bordering on morality and not necessarily an objective question. We discussed why marriage was the reference, rather than say, getting a degree or having a profession or being in a position to be responsible for the consequences of ones actions before sex for instance. We also discussed the value of examining sex in relation to those other considerations. We spoke about the implications and effects of sex. That babies are not the only outcomes of sex. That in fact, one could  argue that babies are the least of the worries when it comes to sex, even considering the period of pregnancy, childbearing and the possible medical complications surrounding both baby and mother, not to speak of the socioeconomic and psychological effects on the unprepared.

I never had any of these conversations with any of my parents, so sex education was for me as was and still is for many young people, akin to that of the young woman in the story or any other rendition of it. Today, we contend not only with so-called community bad boys or girls whom everyone knows. We contend also with the various means by which technology brings instruction to the bedrooms of the present generation. And I wonder, are we really better of not speaking about penises, vaginas and sex? 

 

photo credit: curiousdesire.com

Like Seriously?

I was simply watching television.....

young woman presents with swollen tits ...at the house of ... let's say Wonders

Wonder Man directs application of anointing oil with the help of a female

expectant flock look on ...bemused or in awe?

 

prostrate - a spirit in flight? 

..... I was still stuck to the TV when she was done with. Waiting to see if someone would come along with a swollen penis.

A History of Education: Between Nostalgia and Reality

In my early years in school, primary school started at 7.30am and ended by 12.30pm; leaving plenty of time to have lunch at home, get through my homework, take the about 10 minutes hike to the local library to borrow new comic books or climb the mango tree behind my house to try my hands at plucking the sun out of the sky; cook rice and sauce on a pretend fire (backyard soil with no ants made for good rice and bougainvillea flowers mashed in water with a few pieces of sticks made a good sauce), have a good wash, then get through the daily English or Math exercise my mother had left me for the day- all this, before 4pm when my mother the spoil sport would return from work.

This was the time when history, geography, sports, singing classes, library periods and arts and crafts were a part of the school program not matters that are constantly under negotiation for space on the time-table. I still remember the time I spent molding clay in school, spraying patterns of colors on canvass and breaking off crayons for fun in arts class in the name of drawing. Then singing time, oh how I loved it! We were taught loads of songs and we sang cheerily. My favorite song in nursery was;

“The e ber so o me e e to o hol e wedding in amo de tree so gri fiddi lalala fiddi lalala fiddi lala lala la a”- as delivered by the dandy “Little Ones” class. A few years later while in upper primary and still singing, my nursery song had developed to;

“The birds all met to hold a wedding in among the trees so green, fiddi lalala...” Beautiful song, beautiful times. My mom was certain singing songs and hymns helped with vocabulary, grammar and phonetics. I think she was right about this one but it didn’t matter, I just loved the singing bit of school and kept my “singing exercise book” well.

In these times, the Middle School system was still running minimally; six years of primary education and 4 years pre-secondary education – an absurd colonial shackle. Many schools were turning to the program in fashion; the one that led to the Common Entrance Exam at the end of 6 years of primary education, Ordinary Level Certificate at the end of 5 years of secondary education and Advanced Level Certificate at the end of an additional 2 years of secondary education. From then on it was university all the way.

Extra classes in schools did not exist; you either made it with the formal school time available or you were probably too dense to be helped anyway. Much later kids with learning or more aptly exam passing challenges were put to private extra tuition after school by parents. These situations were rare and had nothing to do with school time because generally there was no question about the adequacy of the school time to cover the syllabus.

I recall my brother and his friends making fun of someone they claimed had been to collect his Common Entrance results with a basket from the West African Examination Council (WAEC) offices.  What they meant was that the fellow had scored 9s, 8s, 7s so instead of the expected say six ones which gave a single digit aggregate (no pun intended); the poor fellow needed a basket because he had to carry an aggregate of 45. Actually his aggregate was about 20. Still this was simply unbelievable and hilarious for the young devils in the late 1970s or early 80s. People like the hapless young man with the basket had to repeat their exam class and for the O’ Level exam, return to 4^th or 5^th year in a mainstream school to re-write the exam. Special schools for re-writing examinations had yet to materialize.

In the mid 80s a few famed schools started organizing classes during the long vacations (June to August). I attended once after much pleading with my parents, citing what most youngsters offered as justification for attending the classes – the schools had the best teachers and tended to teach stuff that was invaluable for passing the O’ and A’ level examinations. My experience did not really support that justification but then again I never was a good learner in class. It seemed to me most kids wanted a forum to socialize and the schools (teachers) had found a niche for making extra money. On hindsight, probably there was a real need.

By the time I was readying for university, late 1980s that is, the country’s educational system had seen a bit of a turn. The Junior and Senior Secondary School, now Junior and Senior High (JSS and SSS) system was in place.

In primary schools, geography, history and the likes gave way to social studies and religious and moral studies. Singing and library periods went out the window and sports or games had become synonymous with football where it existed. No more Common Entrance Examinations; after year six pupils shot straight into Junior Form One on the basis of some dodgy continuous assessment system. Most significantly schools started around 7.30 am or 8 am and ended anytime between 3pm and 4pm. Lunch was no more possible at home and all the things I did after school in my primary school days was not possible. You know, little time for personal reading of just “stuff”, climbing trees, socializing with neighborhood kids etc. It is said the extra hours were necessary for “extra-curricular” activities or extra lessons. I have never quite understood that, being “old school” and all. I mean in my time the games or sports and extra-curricular activities did not require extra time and we still got through the syllabus! Besides, the time between getting home from school and mother returning from work was kids’ prime time in which important life’s lessons were learned!

The new system also meant Inter-College (inter-co) sporting showdowns with all the “jama” suffered setbacks in secondary schools because the 7 year system was replaced with a 2-tier 6 year system; the first 3 effectively taken out of the boarding system and annexed to primary level education.

I carried out my then mandatory one year national service before university in these times. My task was to teach French and English in a public JSS only 30 minutes drive from the country’s capital. After my first week, there was mutual consent between all stakeholders (myself and the JSS1 and 2 kids I was to teach) that my purpose was ill-defined. This was because except for about 3 “out of place” students the rest were starkly illiterate. I mean they could not so much as recognize the alphabet!

I spent the entire year of national service teaching the Junior Secondary forms one and two students the alphabet and to read!

Much later and closer to now the landscape has an interesting character; nurseries and kindergartens have waiting lists for taking in little ones some of whom are yet to be conceived.

5-year old kids write exams and formally pass out of kindergarten in graduation ceremonies that universities could learn from.

Remedial schools; schools that are usually targeted at the Senior High School level examination and cater to those students who have failed to make grades good enough to take them to the next level, are increasing so fast that they will soon overtake mainstream schools by their numbers.

Almost all privately established schools have rebelled against the public school system at the primary level and turned back to systems somewhat similar to my type of primary education. Only this time they are labeled differently; “International”, “Montessori”, yadah yadah yadah and claim to run the British or American system which the average middle class citizen prefers (and can afford) for their kid.  

“University colleges” are springing up all over; many of them resembling corner shops.

Many public schools are scoring 0% (is there such a thing?) in the Junior High School examinations. Now this is not surprising, my students in my national service days were bound to do similarly but I never dared to check  

So what accounts for this trajectory in our (non-) education system? I am looking somewhere between the curricula and teaching methods; school hours and effective performance monitoring and appropriate resources of course and I am still smarting at the absence of MY early years experiences in schools.