Irish Teacher: 'Morality shouldn’t come into relationship and sex education'
Jennifer Horgan. Picture: Larry Cummins
Consistency in a world gone mad.
Do you remember the slogan? I think it was Beamish. Well, one thing I’m certain about is that Irish schools are maddeningly inconsistent.
This idea of consistency and the lack of it, stuck me when I heard Simon Harris’ comment that our current system, “doesn’t teach students about financial literacy, digital skills, sex education or climate skills”.
In relation to some schools, he’s spot on. In relation to others, he’s way off the mark. As things stand, Irish children have wildly different school experiences depending on the school they attend.
Take Harris’ mention of sex education. This week the Department of Education removed booklets from an official department website that invited students to ‘discuss’ homophobic and sexist statements because they did ‘not reflect the inclusive standards and ethos which the education sector seeks to uphold.’
It took one woman’s fight to make this happen.
Pamela O'Leary first encountered objectionable material in PDST (Professional Development for Secondary Teachers) resources back in 2011. At the time she was working with vulnerable teenagers who she desperately needed to keep safe.
In frustration, she turned to resources from youth development organisation Foróige. Here, she successfully sourced biological, anatomical, appropriate, fact-based materials.
More recently, O’Leary attended a PDST session for SPHE (Social Personal and Health Education) teachers in April of this year. She was appalled by the material presented and wrote to the organisers to express her ‘grave concern’ that such materials were still available on their website.
Statements included were: ‘All gays molest children’ and ‘All gays are HIV positive.’
Their intention was to provoke debate but Pamela O’Leary, an experienced Guidance Counsellor and expert in Child Protection recognised how harming they could be, alongside other offensive scenarios and roleplays. She noted that only extreme positions were expressed, giving them a dangerous platform.
Disappointingly, when Pamela communicated her concerns, she was told that “some schools might still use them.”
Pamela’s letter to her trainers made this clear: ‘I strongly disagree with your argument that schools can use what they choose and have autonomy. There are clear examples of racist, sexist and homophobic content in the textbooks.’
The letter detailed some other startling examples including the representation of menstruating as ‘unclean’ and linked the Old Testament and a religious prayer about having a womb and being blessed with fertility.
‘There is no mention of infertility, IVF or the choice not to have children,’ Pamela highlighted.
“One thing I noticed,” Pamela tells me, “was that they were predominantly religion teachers on the SPHE course. The majority were anyway. That’s how SPHE is done in some schools; it’s given to the religion teacher. But I’m interested in teaching students about safety and health. Morality shouldn’t come into Relationship and Sex Education. It’s not about what students should do in any moral sense.”
“SPHE is also given to training teachers or to other very inexperienced teachers. It’s not taken seriously and it’s not fair on these teachers. Children’s health should be taken seriously.”
“There’s a strange apathy about all of this. If I object to these materials at a training session, I’m met with a smirk, a nervous giggle, and the suggestion that other schools use them,” Pam explains.
One wonders at the social impact of an education system wherein some students are taught fact-based Relationship and Sex education, whilst others learn to define sexuality through a heteronormative, Catholic lens.
It doesn’t help that departments lack consistency. The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Children and Youth affairs often lead the way when it comes to innovative resourcing. This is reportedly the case when it comes to other skills Simon Harris mentions, like climate skills for instance.
But when it comes to Sex Education, inconsistency within and across departments and classrooms is immediately dangerous.
Pamela reeled to witness her instructor sharing the rhythm method with SPHE teachers. Not knowing enough about it myself, I discussed the method with a doctor friend. She surprised me by saying it’s fine to teach this in schools.
Once it’s in a history lesson! The doctor envisaged the rhythm method as a bullet point in a class about the Catholic church in the Sixties. “Women have vastly different cycles, and this is a highly dangerous method to advertise to people who are only beginning to understand their bodies,” she explained.
It seems we’re a long way from seeing consistency across Irish classrooms.
We’ve yet to pass the Objective Sex Education Act.
We must rely on the only upshot of inconsistency – the existence of people like Pamela O’Leary – those brave enough to stand up, stand out and fight for the safety of their students.
