The data that I collected for my Community Inquiry Project seems to agree on only the fact that extremely young (14 or younger) adolescent sexual initiation is associated with a plethora of developmental, social and health detriments to those adolescents, and that such sexual initiations are becoming more and more common. After talking with middle school students and reading much literature on the subject, I feel that this is a trend worth fighting, and as a future middle or high school teacher, I feel that it is at least partially my job to be involved in this fight. After all, educators are not just tasked with teaching subject matter to students, but also with assisting in advancing the well-being of their students. That being established, I do not know how I, as an aspiring educator, can look at all of the evidence that points to increased risks of everything from pregnancy to substance abuse associated with early sexual initiation, and not try to do something to help. While I will be teaching mathematics, and certainly it is true that math teachers are not traditionally those tasked with sex eduction classes, I also realize that simply by being a teacher, students will always be watching me., leaving me with at least some opportunity to be a positive influence. I am also fairly confident that somehow, be it overhearing a student’s conversation or being asked direct questions, that sex will come up, even in a math class. Simply by being aware of the information that I learned while doing this project, I believe that I will be better equipped to effectively assist my students to obtain accurate and complete information on the potential consequences of their sexual decisions.
Some of these findings have challenged the assumptions that I have carried with me since my own schooling days - namely, that sexual initiation might start in high school, but certainly no earlier than that. I believe that knowing and accepting the fact that the environment in which I will be teaching is not the same as the one that I came from (or perhaps merely the one that I thought I came from), will greatly assist me in being able to serve students better as the opportunities present themselves. As an urban educator, I need to have the information at my disposal that while sexual initiation age decreases nationwide, urban neighborhoods demonstrate this trend to a much larger degree, including the devastating trend of a much larger risk for STI transmission at younger ages (Romer et. al., 1993). Knowledge, as they say, is power, and as a future educator, I welcome every bit of knowledge about the environment in which I will be teaching.
Also invaluable as a future educator is knowing the risk factors that make early sexual initiation more likely (behavior problems, lack of parent supervision, familial uncertainty, etc.). I am not suggesting that any educator can compensate for all of these problems, but I feel that if I can recognize that certain students are at greater risks for problems such as the one we are discussing, then it will better prepare me to meet their particular needs. I certainly cannot anticipate all of the ways that this will manifest itself, but I hope that throughout the process of this project, I have put myself in a better standing to continue to reflect on this issue and in the light of more experience, to begin to form some sort of cohesive strategy.
In analyzing the data from the mapping of my section of downtown Newark, it would suggest to me that the students of Science Park High are particularly fortunate at having such a nice area in which to attend school. Based on the literature research I conducted, and based on the abundance of places of worship (that can act as agents to strengthen community ties, as well as some evidence that church affiliation decreases the likelihood of early sexual initiation) and the relatively low evidence of neighborhood instability, I would predict that the students that attend school here would be less likely than peers in more disadvantaged neighborhoods to experiment sexually at very young ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment