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Liberec school innovates sex ed

Poor training, taboos kept instructors from teaching birds and bees

By Jana Donovan
For The Prague Post
February 7th, 2007 issue

An embarrassed teacher awkwardly tries to explain condom use to a class of giggling teenagers — that’s the typical picture when it comes to sex education in Czech schools.

Already, in the final grades of elementary school, sex education is compulsory. Yet teachers are neither trained to teach the delicate subject nor are provided with lesson materials.

Now, a medical high school in Liberec — Středni zdravotnická škola — is about to change all that. Starting in late February, the school will begin offering teachers from the Liberec region weekend seminars on teaching sex education.

“The most important thing is that teachers learn how to speak naturally. Sex is a part of life, the same as religion, for instance,” says Ilona Kopecká, a psychotherapist from the Liberec medical school who will be one of the seminar teachers. “Of course, it is important to inform kids about the possible risks sex brings and how to protect oneself.”

During the seminars teachers will be encouraged to speak in front of others about sex-related topics. Experts will help them find the best ways to present things in the most appropriate way.

“I need to become more confident,” says Hana Lusková, a teacher from an orphanage in Frýdlant. “And I also hope I will learn some new information because right now I can teach only what I learn from the Internet.”

Lusková will be in the first group of 15 teachers.

All together there will be 40 courses for 600 teachers. In each course teachers will learn psychology, gynecology, epidemiology and basic sex education.

“The interest has been high so far; we cannot complain,” says Monika Schleiderová, one of the Liberec medical school teachers who came up with the idea to start this project.

“During our visits to other schools, we could see that teachers were desperate,” Schleiderová explains. “They did not have any materials and did not know how to approach this subject.”

In March 2006, the Liberec school submitted the project to the European Union and won a social grant to pay for 75 percent of the total cost of 4.5 million Kč ($207,000). The rest will be covered by the state.

“The course is totally free, and in the end teachers will be given a certificate. We will also provide them with scripts and CD-ROMs,” Schleiderová says.

According to Education Ministry spokesman Ondřej Gabriel, the ministry welcomes all activities aiming to improve sex education. “It is important that teachers can sensitively and skillfully educate students in sexual education,” he says.

“An interesting thing is that there does not exist one single textbook for sex education,” he adds. “The publishers are simply not interested.”

The human touch
Sex education is usually taught as a part of other subjects such as natural sciences or family education. But it depends on each school how it is scheduled.

“We don’t really schedule family education in our school because we have young children,” says Ivana Malková, a director of private elementary school for kids ages 6 to 11. “But sometimes questions come naturally from children and then teachers have to react.”

According to Malková, the problem is often that teachers are ashamed to talk about such intimate things. “It really depends on the teacher’s personality,” she says. “I also come from a generation when talking about sex was a taboo, so it is hard sometimes.”

“And sometimes even parents ask us not to talk with their kids about sex,” she adds.

Kopecká, the psychotherapist, believes that presentation is key.

“The kids are usually surprised that I speak normally and am not blushing while talking about sex,” she says. “Questions about sex are very intimate, so teachers need to approach it in a human way, rather than formally and impersonally.

Jana Donovan can be reached at news@praguepost.com

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