Let’s talk about sex

Teachers and doctors both play a big role in educating young people about sexual and reproductive health, but rarely cross paths during their training. University of Melbourne students are tackling this issue by running an annual peer-group education program between medical and teaching students, with the aim of empowering teachers-in-training to feel comfortable discussing sexual health with young people.

The program – aptly named Teach the Teacher – was formed in 2007 as a result of collaboration between Professor Roger Short, an honorary professor of human reproduction at the University of Melbourne and James Hillis (pictured), a medical student with an interest in local public health initiatives. 

“We came up with Teach the Teacher as a way of distributing knowledge effectively – by providing information about sexual and reproductive health to future teachers, who will then be in the classroom to pass that knowledge on to adolescents year after year,” says Dr Hillis, who is now studying a DPhil in Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at Oxford after graduating from his medical degree in 2010.  

Each year since the program’s formation, a group of 10 to 15 medical students has run a series of interactive seminars for Master of Teaching students. Seminars explore age-appropriate teaching strategies and three key medical topics: contraception, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and teenage pregnancy. 

The seminars are designed to equip student teachers with both the scientific knowledge and the confidence to discuss issues surrounding sexual health with young people.  

Third year medical student Elysia Robb is chairing the program in 2013. Ms Robb says one of the major advantages of Teach the Teacher is that it provides a setting for peers to speak to one another “in the same language” about sexuality and health. 

“Some people ask, ‘How can medical students do a better job than people who are trained to teach about teaching?’ And that’s exactly right. We don’t do a better job, it’s just a different way of approaching the topic.

“We’re talking to our peers about sex and health. We’re similar ages and as a result we’ve had similar adolescent experiences. We speak to one another on the same level – particularly about sex.”

Ms Robb stresses that Teach the Teacher isn’t designed to replace the formal University curriculum, but instead provides an opportunity for teaching students and medical students to consolidate what they know and become comfortable discussing confronting issues in an educational setting.

“We carry out participant surveys each year. Most of the teaching students who have taken part in the program have said they feel more confident in their capacity to discuss sexual health with young people as a result,” Ms Robb says. 

A survey of over 1200 young people in 2012 found that most young people consider sex education in Australian schools inadequate and have very little knowledge about common STIs like chlamydia, herpes and gonorrhea. STI rates across the country are rising rapidly in the under-25 age group and Australia has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the developed world. 

Dr Hillis says that while a range of factors contributes to these statistics, improved sexual education in schools is the best place to start addressing them. One of the aims of Teach the Teacher is to equip future teachers with the knowledge and self-confidence to be able to discuss sexual health with their students in any setting, not just sex education classes. This idea is referred to as ‘the whole-school approach’ and is designed to address weaknesses in the current system.

“Although many people think sex education is the domain of health and physical education teachers alone, the reality is that students could ask any teacher for information or advice about their sexual health. Sexual health could come up in a conversation about relationships in an English text – but only health and PE teachers are trained to discuss these issues,” Dr Hillis says. 

“On the rare occasion that friends of mine wanted to discuss a sexual health issue with a teacher at school, they tended to approach one close to them in age – regardless of the subject that teacher taught.”

Ms Robb notes that the Netherlands has the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in the Western world – largely as a result of their comprehensive sexual health curriculum, which is informed by a liberal attitude toward sexuality and reproduction across the country.  

“Educational materials in the Netherlands use age-appropriate language and strong, simple messaging: namely, if you’re going to have sex, do it safely,” says Ms Robb.

“This is the kind of message we want to convey to Australian adolescents.”

With support from AMA Victoria and Marie Stopes International, the students involved in the program have produced a resource book and website. 

“We have tried to make these resources relevant and accessible to both young teachers and adolescents,” Ms Robb says. “We explain the science and physiology of sexual health in a light-hearted way, provide links to the most up-to-date information and communicate in a way that resonates with adolescents.”

The program is beneficial for medical students as well as teaching students,” she adds.

“As medical students, teaching will be a big part of our careers. The feedback we receive from education students about ‘how to teach’ is very valuable for us.”

www.teachtheteacher.com.au