In the Culture House's Studio 3 the Leftwing party has gathered the audience, RFSU, RFSL Ungdom, The Star Watch from Sundbyberg and the Teacher association to discuss what they are going to do with the miserable sex and coexistence knowledge in the schools of our country. Both among teachers and students.
Ida Gabrielsson from the Youth Left is leading the panel discussion and controls with a more or less careful hand the participants to talk about key questions regarding the field of sex and coexistence education. Which problems exist today and what should you do to fight them?
From the Teacher association comes Jakom Möllstam that is part of a student's committee to be able to influence and inform with the goal of giving the teacher students the basic knowledge they need in sex and coexistence to be able to do their job. Jakob think that this is a quite sad task, where the sad is that it needs a lot of engagement to get such an obvious thing to happen. Jakob puts hope to the big transformation of the teacher education that is just being planned.
-There, we have a possibility to influence! To get the sexual and coexistence knowledge into education. This subject doesn't have a clear place in the curriculum and in the schools you don't have a special teacher for this subject.
Pernilla Karlsson from the Starwatch, a girl watch in Sundbyberg, is very engaged in the outgoing information and works for giving girls a better tool for facing the situations they are exposed to in their everyday life.
-We encourage youths to call us if they wonder something. We work a lot with trying to empower the girls through their self-esteem. The human being needs to be empowered to be able to face the attitudes that exist in society.
Felix König is the president of RFSL Youth and works to obstruct the heteronorm. He is engaged in a lot, including the teacher education. One signal of a imperfect educational system of sex and coexistence for teacher students is the fact that 45000 were infected with clamydia in 2007, Felix believes.
-The things that exists in this subjects in schools is normative. It is not so concentrated on the personal perspective when it comes to sex, rather the result of sex that should be coexistence.
Hans Olsson from RFSU means that the quality in sex and coexistence knowledge education needs to be rised. The schools haven't got time to update when the earlier ruling focus on the vagina (when it comes to sex) has started to be questioned together with other classical norms.
-One main criticism is that the schools in sex and coexistence knowledge education is not scientificaly rooted. There are too many opinions and variation at the schools and the The National Agency for Education has been passive. What should the point with the education be?
Generally everyone agrees with the quality on sex in schools being the problem, not the quantity in first place, even if the vision on norms and valuations is one thing that needs to pervade all subjects in school, not only the biology via sex and coexistence. An inferior education gives unsure students with valuations that are not built on knowledge. These are for example girls that are met with an insulting sexual attitude in the school corridors, and gives a basis to homophobia and intolerance.
Action plans
So how are they going to get rid of the inferior education of students and teachers?
-The teaching aids must bee reviewed! RFSL has done a revise and a blacklisting of biology books with a violating LGBT-description, Felix tells. How should the school be able to be better when the books are not?
-We work and inform normcritical! We are happy to inform in schools and have leaved a package of measures to the municipalities, so we will see what they say, says Pernilla.
Responsibility
Where should the responsibility be of improving the education? At organisations or at the central institutions?
-The organisations should be a complement with their capability but they cannot have the responsibility! Organizing it is the schools responsibility because the task is with them, and should be there. The politicians are responsible for the direction and the principles for the outcarrying, Hans says.
The audience's work in the team
From the audience comes the opinion that it is to little practical training for the new teachers. How should they face the reality after the minimal meeting that a teacher student has with the students before the education is done? Jakob agrees with that valuation from the public but has some hopes that a coming teacher certification should help up that situation.
Matilda Westman from the Teachers assocation thinks that it is very important for the whole subject to not be understood as vague. It can sound vague when the development of sex and coexistence should develop and it is important with clear goals! Otherwise it will be hard to take measures. The subject needs the self-esteem to not threat itself as something vague. When it comes to the work with the self-esteem Matilda wants to recommend that you watch “Klass 9A” on svt.se, the Swedish National Television. Compare the difference in confidence that the students' have between episode one and twelve!
Diana studies at the Hotel and Restaurant program at high school and is engaged in the student council. At her school, students want a scheduling of sex and coexistence edcuation since the education from the lower secondary school was poor. The school says that they are not required to hold such a training. What does one do?
-They are wrong in saying that, Hans says. It is compulsory to have sex and coexistence education at college too, not only at the nine year compulsory school. On the other hand, the directive is so vague that the school can get away with for example only having one day with a sex and coexistence theme, and this is of course not good.
To sum it up, everyone appears to be agreeing that, primarily, there is a need for training of teachers and students training to be teachers, and that the old norms should be booted out of schools.