High school
confidential

>> Students and teachers scramble to find
a way to teach sex ed with minimal
guidance from the province

HEAD AND HANDS AND PRIVATE PARTS:
Sense Project coordinator Christina Foisy

by SAMER ELATRASH

On a Saturday afternoon in January, students from several high schools in Montreal leave the offices of NDG community group Head and Hands, where they were taking instruction on becoming peer sex educators in their schools.

“It’s cool, and it’s non-judgmental,” says 16-year-old Joanna Bennet, while waiting for her mother to pick her up. “This is a good opportunity to learn about safe sex and to teach others about it.”

She is one of four students from Trafalgar, a private high school, who’ve signed up for the courses with Head and Hands. “A lot of people [have unsafe sex],” she says. “And they’re not thinking of the consequences, as if it’s nothing, like a handshake.”

Her mother, Denise Chakar, a sex ed consultant for high schools, says she supports her daughter becoming a peer educator. “I think she’d be great,” she says. “I think there should be more of these role models.”

Chakar says provincial government reforms to school curriculums, which no longer require schools to set aside classes on sex ed, may leave students without information on safe sex habits. In a 2003 booklet distributed to high schools in Quebec, the provincial Education Ministry suggested that sex ed become the responsibility of all teachers, who should incorporate the topic into their classes. The reform was assailed by critics, who said it was impracticable.

“The reform isn’t doing justice to sex ed,” says Chakar. “A lot of teachers are uncomfortable talking about sexuality, and if they are comfortable, they don’t have the training.”

Vaguely holistic

The Education Ministry says its reform, which took effect in secondary schools in 2006, introduces a holistic approach to sex education. Before the reform, schools set aside five hours a year for instruction in sex ed during moral education classes.

“[The reform] requires teachers to help the students become more responsible in lifestyle practices on the level of their health, security and sexuality, and to develop their sense of critical thinking,” says ministry spokeswoman Stéphanie Tremblay, adding that it ought to be applied by a group of teachers.

Although the ministry says it’s a requirement, the absence of a formal curriculum and oversight has left sex ed instruction to each school’s discretion.

“I love the [holistic] spirit of it,” says Annie Ogle, a teacher at NDG’s Outreach high school and a board member of Head and Hands. “But it’s vague. On the one hand, it’s part of the program. On the other hand, nothing is specifically required. There is no measure to implement it.”

Linda Henderson, a veteran sexologist and consultant with the English School Board of Montreal, supports the reform. “The reform approach is more sensible than the occasional drive-by harm-reduction approach. The new approach is holistic,” she says.

However, she says some schools may be neglecting the topic. “I must sadly admit some schools have nothing, no sex ed,” she says. Henderson says she has given a few training workshops to teachers, which were well attended, but teachers are not required to undertake the training.

“Teachers are reluctant, there’s no doubt about that,” says Richard Mason, principal of Marymount Academy. “They already have a heavy workload.” Mason says his school relies on the services of a social worker for sex ed, and has brought in speakers on the topic, “but there’s no prescribed program, per se.”

Eileen Kelly, principal of Laurier Macdonald high school in St-Leonard, says the school tries to incorporate sex education into “the school ethos.” However, teachers may already have their hands full with their courses.

“When a teacher is saying, ‘I can’t get through my science curriculum,’ it’s difficult to tell them, ‘Put this in too,’” she says. The school retains a nurse and a social worker who are available to help students, she says.

Common sense

Implementing the reform would also require coordination between teachers in different departments, which may be difficult in larger high schools, says Patrice Asselin, head teacher at MIND, an alternative high school on the Plateau. “It’s a logistical problem,” he says. “In a big high school, it’s hard to get teachers from humanities and the sciences to work with each other. The principal would have to redraw schedules to make it happen.”

Some schools seem to have consigned the subject to guidance counsellors and nurses, while inviting outside groups like Head and Hands in for lectures, workshops and peer education training to students.

Two years ago, Head and Hands launched Sense, a pilot project in several private schools in Montreal in response to the reform. The group offers workshops provided by trained facilitators on sexually transmitted infections (STI) prevention, relationships and negotiating safe sex with partners. “It’s not just information-based,” says Christina Foisy, funding coordinator for the Sense Project. “It includes attitudes, values and behaviour.”

Sense also provides students courses on becoming peer educators. Students (with parental consent) are taught listening and referral skills and act as “role models” for fellow students, says Foisy. “Peer-based models are more effective in disseminating information,” she says.

The project has attracted the attention of a research team from McGill’s education department. Head and Hands’ peer education is “extensive,” says Lisa Trimble, a Ph.D candidate at McGill working on the research team. “The way sexuality is usually discussed is by measuring teen pregnancies and STIs, but there’s also relationships and emotions,” she says. “It’s very difficult just to pass information down and say, ‘That’s what you should do.’ Peer education offers some opportunities for the message coming from the youth to be believable, and to address what they want to know.” Trimble says youth are mostly likely to ask their peers for information on sex.

Teens do it better

Having students as peer educators in schools gives the message more credibility, says Trafalgar student Bennet, who’s completed three of five courses needed to become a peer educator. “We could do it in a way that makes people comfortable,” she says. “I think the students would respond better to people my age.”

While Joanna’s mother is supportive, some parents object to exposing youth to sex education. “There is still a taboo about sexuality,” says Denise Chakar. “Some religious parents don’t want schools to talk about sexuality.” Chakar says one school she consulted at received phone calls from parents who objected to the school providing condoms to students.

“It can be a scary topic,” says Laurier Macdonald principal Eileen Kelly. “I’m talking as a parent. You don’t like to think of your child as being sexually active. It’s an emotional issue. And schools are multicultural, different cultures will approach it from different viewpoints.”

Claudia Mitchell, a professor of education at McGill who’s researched sex education internationally, says high school students may lack knowledge about STIs at an age when they start having sex. “That’s the age young people are likely to become sexually active,” she says. “There’s a basic lack of information. I had beginning teachers conduct small surveys in schools. A majority [of the students who took the survey] thought there was a cure for AIDS.”

“Youth in schools don’t fall under the at-risk category,” says Sense project coordinator Jocelyn Porter. “So people say, ‘Okay, they’re taken care of, they’re fine.’ Sex affects everyone. They still need the information.”

Evidently so: A 2006 study by the federal Public Health Agency reported HIV rates were increasing among women between the ages of 15 and 29. Health researchers say women are more susceptible to HIV than men during unprotected heterosexual sex.

A 2002 study commissioned by the Council of Ministers of Education Canada reported that most students consider school an important source for sex ed and called for more attention on sexual health in high schools. The report found that 40 per cent of boys and 46 per cent of girls had sex by Grade 11. “Those not engaged in intercourse usually explain this on the basis of not being ready or not having the opportunity,” the report said.

But the report also says that only just over one quarter of students surveyed had used a contraceptive the last time they’d had sex.