Let’s TALK about SEX

            The recent news of introducing Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) as a part of the school curriculum by the Ministry of Education is much needed, if not long overdue. 

        During my brief stint as a science teacher – who involved teaching adolescents living at the age of numerous life-changing or sometimes life-threatening circumstances, I identified the significance of making materials associated with CSE to be made more accessible in our learning institutions such as in schools. 

        Empirical findings based on CSE were also orally presented in two national seminars held at teacher education institutes – one at Samtse College of Education and the other at Paro College of Education, in 2016 and 2019 respectively.

        Elsewhere  and 4 years back in my blog post, I have contended: 

“Sex is everywhere. It has noticeably invaded the public square than ever before. Music is sexually toned while the music videos are highly galvanized with sexually explicit content. Songs postulated to produce quixotic flavour are genetically mutated with degrading lyrics that would either objectify feminism or reify the supremacy of masculinity. Advertisements and endorsements are increasingly becoming the brothels of obscenity by the growing use of immodest sexual imagery believed to elicit sexual responses and in so doing invite consumers. And almost intolerably, sex has developed itself into a language of social media that is understood by the culture of any origin. 

 

While sex has openly colonized practically almost every sphere of human space, it has undoubtedly remained injured after the collision of numerous existing cultural and religious taboos in discussing it within a family circle. Restrictions of these measures are highly detrimental that the adolescents are often risked to gather misconstrued knowledge and irrelevant myths from various sources that may be passed down to the generations” 

My presentation slides during the "Adolescent Sexuality and Wellbeing in the 21st Century", October 22-25, 2019. Paro College of Education 

        Adolescence is a period of human development that is often confronted with increased freedom to make choices. Their ability to confront these choices and make healthy decisions are key to development.

        It is our responsibility to offer the right information and skills for adolescents to navigate and make informed choices for their reproductive health and general well-being – both physiologically and psychologically.  

        Despite the evidence that it is necessary and valuable, materials on CSE are not easily accessible. In a cultural setting like ours, CSE is frequently confined to the conversation inside our home premises. Because it is so delicate and sensitive, many parents avoid it and find it intimidating. 

        According to the literature, some parents are concerned about encouraging early sexual experimentation by arousing sexual interest in their children, if they commence open talks about sexuality with them. In our scenario, many of our parents shy away from communicating about sexuality with their children. In some cases, some parents feel ill-equipped, hesitant, or afraid of talking about CSE. 

            Because we grew up in a cultural setting that did not encourage us to talk about anything related to sexuality or reproductive health, we generally feel unknowledgeable and uncomfortable talking with our children, thus resulting in the same trend of rearing the children in the same way we were brought up. I found this trend of prohibits not only predominantly visible but highly worrying. 

            The existence of such cultural and religious barriers in discussing sexuality with adolescents may lead to the growth of numerous negative health consequences that would be life-threatening to our kids – which may be otherwise avoidable. A gap such as this can be minimised by initiating consistent open communication about sexuality with children. 

            Being aware of this practice, I used to discuss sexuality with my pupils in class, in addition to academic obligations. As a science teacher, it was a huge benefit to me because I didn't have to feel embarrassed about discussing reproductive health or concerns linked to CSE. As a result, I encouraged them to speak up openly, which inspired me to investigate adolescent-parent communication regarding sexuality in the Bhutanese setting. And that's how I learned that our parents say, NO to talk about SEX with our children.

            Given that I wanted to put CSE sexuality education into the spotlight of conversation from the perspective of the school environment, I endeavoured to find a platform where key stakeholders could hear it. But only a handful take interest to listen, even though our society is rapidly amassing a wide variety of sexual risks, including, but not limited to, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexually transmitted illnesses, sexual orientation (LGBTI), rape, and suicide, to mention a few.

            Let alone individuals who are out of my work circle appreciate my tiny efforts, several of my immediate bosses supplied me with hitches in freeing me to attend conferences — on the pretence that I would miss class. Approval to attend any academic conferences was first, difficult to get, and if approved, took a very long time for mysterious reasons. Regrettably, the same boss who restricted my move to attend such academic meetings has submitted my research papers for his promotion —  without my consent and was successful after a 9-year wait — despite the fact that he had no research publications.

            This narrative is not designed to be a protest. No! by any means. It is my grievance and regrets that I have been so dedicated and loyal to our culture of respect and tha-damtsig (committed leader-subordinate relationship). Thinking back, at times, I feel that our leaders exploit loyal and industrious individuals and utilise them as promotion mules widely, instead of nurturing them. Our leaders at times, want us to perform better in life, but never better than them. No! by any means.  

        But nothing is permanent, and it is worthwhile to move on. And now here I am – away from them and near to my dreams.  

Your Problem is Your Problem

        The vexatious part of politics is that during the election campaign, every political enthusiast – or politico-maniac as neologism may define it – propagandise the slogan: Your Problem is My Problem. Post elections, when one is at the helm of power, the same words, or actions, manifest to demonstrate that Your Problem is Your Problem.

        Whether those lines are crafted on the spur of the moment or with the intention of hilarity, the recent commentary by the Minister of Education about the teacher transfer was grossly unwelcoming. As a figure who has dominion over the Ministry, speaking illogically at this magnitude inside the august parliament house only signals how scornful and contemptuous we are regarding the already dwindling veteran teachers that are triggered predominantly by the miscarriage of deployment business and tsunamis of faltering avowals from the Education Ministry.

                On the one hand, we bellow of teacher attrition as grave educational anxiety that demands the immediate engagement of different stakeholders to moderate the injury to our education system. On the other hand, when we hit on the right cord to discuss within the circle of the nation’s prime lawmakers, we lampoon with hypothetical and impracticable metaphors thereby, only rubbing salt to the injury. This paradoxical fascination of teacher attrition and retention has now become a phenomenon in Bhutan that everybody knows but nobody really knows.  

            By status and power, parliamentarians are the privileged populace that has the closest access to His Majesty the King’s visions and aspirations. Listening to their discussions, however, gives the impression that they are still thousands of miles away, for they appear to have never hearkened to the Royal vision for education. 

                If what we heard is correct, questions for any MPs are filed a week ahead of time before addressing them in the National Assembly. One week is a lavish amount of time for anyone to research and generate meaningful data, especially when it comes to the issues surrounding teachers. After all, the syndrome of teacher deployment crisis and its consequences continued as one of the immortal issues in the cellar of educational forums for over decades now. 

            History has it that issues such as quality of education, teacher deployment, teacher workloads, and improving teaching environments were on the catalogue of discussions since the evolution of the Annual Education Conference almost 2 decades ago. Closely following, every annual education conference held until today still recites this same inventory. With inconspicuous outputs from these conferences every year, it has now largely camouflaged as the Olympic event of the Ministry of Education, held annually for school leaders to review the same issues that emerged many moons ago. 

 

            What we fail to realise when we arrange a conference of such scale are the cumbersome costs it has to the government coffer – especially to the Kingdom like ours that runs on a shoestring budget and where development plans are predominantly conceived based on foreign aid. 

 

            If we as citizens are seriously concerned about these national educational disasters, even if we cannot discover the pill to cure it, by now, we would have generated some indigenous prescriptions to nurse the cause. In the simplistic sense, it is time that we attend to these issues seriously and practically rather than throwing gibberish opinions. 

Image courtesy: Click LINK

                By the time I finished writing this perspective, the video had gone viral on social media, attracting over a thousand comments. Many people appeared to find it comical and hilarious, while others despised it for its hollowed viewpoint. 

            As a teacher who was disconnected from my family due to this transfer whirlpool for eight years during my twelve years with the education ministry, I did not observe even a morsel of amusement or material in the discussion. In contrast, it resembled me more of a harangue or a sarcastic rage for the miscarriage of our education system. 

                Categorically speaking, even as a retired teacher, it aches my heart when people in higher social hierarchy taunt already impoverished teachers who are taking the humongous role in architecting and engineering the future of our generations despite sterile work settings and withstanding the drought of societal succour. 

            This inflicts me with a conviction that, teachers’ problem is teachers’ problem and nobody's problem. And that the erosion of teacher attrition will visibly perpetuate in the land of our education system.