Education articles

SEX EDUCATION AMONG CHILDREN
The reason we boast sometimes on Indian culture, is because it has rich values, values that are of high morale and unique to the world. Values are something on which our life thrives. We find organizations thriving on values, families stand united on its values, and the very humanity stands on human values. Without values, an individual would have no identity. We deliver value when we execute pride in holding our national symbols. We deliver value when we show respect to our elders. We owe value when we look at each female with the respect as high as that for a mother. And it is these values, that brings in us courage to hold against the odds. It is these values that help us to go ahead in life along with our family, with our friends, with our colleagues, with the society and with the nation all together. No doubt, values are as important as our life itself.
One of these great Indian values is about educating our children to hold against the most devastating erotic feelings towards opposite gender, the so called ‘Sex’. Sex is a powerful temptation and it requires very strong values to hold upon it. However, it is now days challenged by educated section of society, particularly the followers of western culture, in the name of exposing the mystery to the curious and immature child.
The conclusion made by these literates is that it is a prevention methodology, which would make the next generation safe from the perils of Sex. Universally, prevention is better than cure, goes as a law, but the question remains – Is sex education a prevention, cure or an experiment the result of which is either not known or is deliberately being forced in the society? What if you have educated a child in sex and he fails to hold his temptations thereafter? What would you call that situation – the prevention failed or the medicine failed? Let us try to understand prevention in a better way. If I am not mistaken, prevention is a boundary, a boundary that tells you what lies on the other side. At a broad level, there are three types of boundaries:
• First, we are completely aware what lie on the other side of the boundary. For example, nearly every one knows the after effect of smoking.
• Second, we are partially or unaware of the negative factors and accept the boundaries as a part of cultural values, with the awareness of the positive factors within the boundary. For example, if we do exercise, we say it is a preventive measure from bad health. The details of bad health may not be known in completeness to the doer, but there is a straight conception that fits to his mind – exercise is good for health.
• Third, we are completely unaware of positive or negative factors on either side of the boundary. For example, doing some rituals as a religious practice.
If Sex education is a prevention boundary, it should find a place in one of the above category. First, why do we need this education? A simple answer is that we do it sometimes. Second, how do we do sex (even with our spouse): in privacy or publicly? Do we discuss it out openly with friends and expose our spouse to them? If answers to these questions is ‘No’ and convincingly ‘No’, then the first boundary lies with the adults itself – how can they talk sex with their children or students, when we cannot practice it before them? We have to understand a very important aspect here. If we dare to talk such things with children, we are breaking away the boundary of respect and regard straight away (they or we not able to talk sex with each other signifying that there is some regard that produces this shyness or hesitation). We are undoubtedly introducing a concept that would teach our children to go beyond this boundary and easily practice sex, the barriers being broken and broken by teachers and parents first. During childhood, sex is a curiosity and hence is not known to them completely. All they know is that it is considered wrong by elders and is practiced between parents. Curiosity can take shape of temptation and temptations would lead to doing the wrong, if children are not taught of values that can help them prevent the temptation. Talking to them about sex would kill their curiosity and give birth to educated temptation. Thus, sex education so seeming to be an experimented cure, would necessarily lead to side effect of practicing sex as an educated practitioner. Sex education would in fact as a catalyst in producing sexual practices, and can in no way be a preventive measure. This education has no relation with feelings like temptations. Temptations can be only held by practice of cultural values, may be as a fear to breach the respectful barrier.

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