A handbook of health education.

  • Great Britain. Department of Education and Science.
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of health education. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    individual teacher to decide how far to answer them; but anyone who stands in the relation of a teacher to a group of children will not lightly consider leaving to others all responsibility for this aspect of their well-being. Where a teacher feels real hesitation about trying to answer a particular question, the pupil should be referred to someone else, whether the Head or some other colleague, the school nurse, or the school doctor; in schools the biologist on the staff will often be in a position to give advice or information. Whoever is concerned should bear in mind that, through films, television and other sources boys and girls may be in closer contact with the outside world than adults realise. Direct unemotional answers, of a kind that will fit in with what they know from the world outside, should have the best chance of being accepted with conviction, and much will depend on the general values which (over a long period and with the help of the parents) a good school can help its pupils to build up for themselves. Some of the questions asked are likely to reflect as much hesitation or anxiety about the values and tendencies of the world around them as about a particular issue concerned with sex and should be dealt with accordingly. In many secondary schools the work of teaching young children about the ways of living creatures can be taken a stage further, developing by degrees in the direction of more advanced biological studies; for many children this is likely to be their first introduction to the physiology of sex. In biology boys and girls can be helped to find out about the physiology of sex in unemotional fashion, particularly if such work can be begun before the emotional difficul- ties which often arise with the onset of puberty. They can learn to consider reproduction as one only of the essential functions of living things, instead of singling it out as something exceptional. It should also be possible to help them to see the reproductive processes as adaptations, making in the long run for the better survival of the individual and the race. It is impossible to generalise about the needs of pupils in different schools and different areas; but many schools have found they can be of the greatest help to their pupils by providing carefully planned courses which include a consideration of aspects of sexual reproduc- tion and the changes of puberty. These are often phased to meet the needs of children at various stages of development and integrated with other work designed to prepare them for maturity. Children commonly suffer anxiety about the changes associated with puberty. Their need for information becomes great and they will try to satisfy an avid and natural curiosity, normally by discussing sexual relation- ships and the phenomena of growing up with their friends. It is at this stage that children require further information. To mention only