The past 2 weeks

Hey Guys,

First of all, sorry for my 2-week hiatus from blogger-land. Things have been hectic... mainly I've been sick-ish... same old cold/cough kicking my but that I've been stuggling with off and on for at least the past 4 years (thought I had it beat this year, but it just came later in the year instead). So I've been trying to get extra rest. Then we've been super busy with cel group, leading Alpha, church, Easter, friends, work, and the usual busy-ness of laundy, groceries, cleaning, etc. On top of that, both Andrew and I were being evaluated at work for the past few weeks, so I had to eliminate some distractions and make sure my lessons were bang-on (not that I usually do a crappy job, it's just when you know you're being watched you want to be a shining star!).

Okay, so enough with the excuses. Today I wanted to blog about an experience I've had over the past month or so. As many of you know, this year was my first time teaching sex ed (last semester). I went with the approach of teaching abstinence (not having sex before marriage), but also doing a safe sex lesson in conjunction with it. The reason is that I thought it's naive to think all kids are going to wait to have sex before marriage, and if they don't wait, I want them to be safe, seeing as there are SO many scary and disgusting STIs out there these days. I would hate to think that any of my students contracted an STI just b/c I was negligent as a teacher and didn't teach them about how to lower the risk. That being said, I did the full condom-on-the-banana demo. I've never had such a captive audience of students in 4 years... it was pretty funny!

Anyways, my "philosophy" on all this was recently challenged when I met another expat lady who was organizing a facilitator training course to teach a course called "No Apologies" which teaches abstinence to teens. She encouraged me to sign up and I said I'd look into it. Thinking I could use this course to supplement my current teaching model (abstinence PLUS safe sex), I was in the middle of registering for the facilitator training, when I noticed that I had to sign a pledge that I would teach ONLY abstinence and NOT the "plus safe sex" part. According to my "philosophy" (see above paragraph) I had a genuine problem with this, so I emailed the lady, explained my issue, and told her I wouldn't be enrolling in the facilitator training for this reason.

Thinking that was the end of it, I was surprised when she emailed me back a few days later, telling me she had emailed the organization who puts on the course (Focus on the Family) and forwarded my issue. They had replied with a lot attachments they recommended I read. Here is the excerpt that "got me":

"Many educators and organizations have ignored or soft-pedaled the idea of remaining sexually absitent until marriage because they feel that is is unrealistic. They assume that sexual activity among teenagers is inevitable, and that the most reasonable approach is to help them minimize its consequences. But this approach downgrades adolescents to the status of animals who cannot control their primal urges. Furthermore, the same assumption is never made by programs striving to eliminate tobacco, alcohol and drug use among young people." (eg- you don't tell a kid not to drink & drive, unless they're wearing a helmet which will make much safer!).

After thinking about all this, I decided to sign up for the facilitator training after all. It was pretty intense... 19 hours over 2 days (plus 4 hours commuting), but it was totally worth it. (The reason I had to take the training was that you're not really allowed to use the program unless you've been trained and certified in it). I came away with a much better understanding of the course, plus LOADS of resources, including a full curriculum book and workbooks for the students, plus a great Powerpoint presentation, plus a huge props list (lots of object lessons are done).

So the next hoop to jump thru was to get it approved by our school so that I could actually teach it here (assuming that we're staying on for another year in China which we're not 100% sure about yet, but are leaning towards). The course had to be approved by our Canadian principal, as well as the head of the international department, plus the Chinese principal... thankfully I got the green light yesterday, so I'm pretty happy! I'm excited to impact the lives in a super important and meaningful way next year!

Okay, just looking back over this I see it's become a novel of a post. That's enough for now... I'll try to post again soon with a bunch of recent pics... lots of those on our camera.

Hope you're all well.