Carlos Eduardo Beltramo Alvarez, researcher of project Education of Affectivity and Human Sexuality. Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), University of Navarra.
Education affective-sexual, reasons and measures to offer it.
The affective-sexual Education is an important topic for any person at training. It is appropriate that this Education is oriented to train children and adolescents in affective literacy that allows them to understand the intrinsic connection that sexuality has with love, with fundamental life decisions, with health staff and with the strength of the social network. In this way, affective-sexual Education programs will be able to lower the levels of aggressiveness in relationships between young people, increase authentic respect and improve the abilities to project themselves in life in the long run deadline (Weed & Ericksen, 2019). Therefore, this subject of Education cannot remain in short term efectisms that would not provide learners with those tools they need to make mature and healthy decisions.
Sexual life is a area that corresponds to the intimacy of individuals. In children and adolescents this intimacy is in full training. There are programs of study that show how neurological and cerebral immaturity characterizes these ages (Siegel, 2017). Elements such as intimacy and immaturity, among others, make the role educational of the family fundamental. Since in the family there is unconditional acceptance of all its members, both of origin and belonging, this is the most suitable community to form the personality of a subject until maturity and full autonomy.
According to a WHO definition, sexual health is "the integration of the emotional, somatic, intellectual and social elements of the sexual being by means that are positively enriching and that enhance personality, communication and love" (World Health Organization, 1975, p. 6). This definition also makes the family the natural framework for children and adolescents to acquire sexual health.
According to the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies, human groups are distinguished between communities and societies (Tönnies, 1974). In communities, human beings are unconditionally accepted from birth. This unconditionality is maintained throughout life, forming bonds of great power and capacity for integration. The family is the community par excellence. On the other hand, we belong to societies by fulfilling different functions such as citizenship, work performance, sporting interests, options to a political party, payment of taxes, among others. It can be said that the school, being a part of society, has many elements of community. The school acquires some community characteristics precisely in the complementation with the families of those who attend it.
Moreover, no family is isolated. Being a community, the family has to help its members to be inserted in society: the school is also an adequate environment to complement this process.
In the field of the affective-sexual Education the school should seek to transmit both elements of society and those provided by the community called family. Therefore, the most advisable is to establish a harmonious relationship between school and families in which teachers stimulate the active participation of parents, not forgetting that the family has priority, as stated in article 26 clause 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To avoid possible differences, the center educational has to do everything possible so that families know what is being done and how it is planned to be done and, of course, it is important that families are fully taken into account in the process. It is not advisable to establish a discrepancy between the two areas as it is ultimately suffered by the students (López-del Burgo et al., 2016).
In a democracy, it is normal for citizens to have different moral conceptions on such sensitive issues as sexuality. A center educational, in order to defend the diversity of conceptions, must take special care to ensure that parents understand what classes are to be implemented (in the syllabus, as complementary or extracurricular activities) and agree to agreement with it. This is not a limitation of the freedom of Chair but an elementary measure that favors the good functioning of the family-school binomial in a democratic society. For example, there would be no discussion on the content of the physiology of the menstrual cycle. However, in a democracy there may well be different opinions on issues such as "what does it mean to love" or "at what age it may be a good idea to start having sex". It is not logical that a director center educational or a government can decide content in this regard without taking parents into account.
Although the supply of pedagogical resources on this area has grown a lot in recent years, there is a lack of scientific rigor and a holistic view of the phenomenon of sexuality (Gómara, Repáraz, Osorio, & de Irala, 2010), as requested by the WHO in several documents. It is evident that teachers need more support and educational resources that they can implement in the classroom.
These tools should be based on a holistic view of sexuality and cover both biological and medical content with solid scientific support, as well as elements of what is known as emotional Education or, to be more precise, affective literacy. It is necessary that they touch on aspects related to the four dimensions mentioned by the WHO definition, focused on students acquiring communication skills, developing their personality and being able to live a love that excludes violence. We are talking about a humanized and humanizing sexual Education , which does not remain only in the Anatomy and physiology, but goes beyond. In this sense, programs that actively incorporate the three pillars of the educational pact tend to have better results: student body academic staff and parents.
Much has been said about the adolescent stage as the appropriate time for the teaching of the affective-sexual Education . This vision is usually based on reducing the contents to knowledge of biology and reproduction. But if we broaden the pedagogical horizon, we see that it is perfectly possible to educate in affectivity and sexuality during primary school. The only condition is that we do not try to include in that stage contents that correspond to later moments of the psychosexual development . The justified distrust that causes talking about Education sexuality at early ages is that some proposals do not make an adequate selection of contents from agreement to evolutionary stages and can generate experiences that do not educate.
These educational dissonances can be avoided by concentrating the affective and sexual Education on those aspects that each stage demands. In the case of the primary Education stage they should serve to put the instructions of sexual health. A boy or girl should learn skills such as empathy, assertiveness, conflict resolution or self-esteem, among others. They should also develop a system of ethical values that will allow them to frame any possible future decision that, while respecting the legitimate diversity of conceptions on such intimate issues, puts in the first place the agreement of families with the format to be implemented.
For example, the program Quiero Querer, some pedagogical materials focused precisely on the Education Primary, is an alternative that can be mentioned. Structurally, it covers the three subjects of the system educational, having books for students, books for teachers and books for parents. It includes both contents and activities related to the anatomical and physiological part of sexuality, as well as those related to emotional literacy and the stimulation of personal and social skills. It has a pedagogical structure that defines student-centered objectives, and is framed in competencies to be achieved in each unit of work. The work of academic staff is guided by the currently widely used outline of head (cognitive dimension), heart (attitudinal and affective dimension) and hand (the action itself). The material is used in different versions both in Spain and in Latin American countries.