Classes debating questionnaire data

Click para obter esta informação em Português (click here to get this information in portuguese)
The last activity I developed with my students was an important step of the journey in space and time. This activity consisted of a debate on the survey results.

It was a dynamic debate, as it was supposed to be: sexuality is a matter really complex and, because of that, there are a lot of opinions about the way it must be lived. To judge everyone’s attitude towards sexuality requires to understand in a deep way the reasons and motives of everyone. Thus, before presenting to the students a moralizing and formatter speech, we think we should try to discover the experience of each one, every ethical understanding which is designing the personality of each of our students.

Consequently, sexual education cannot be done through monologues in which teachers assume the role of experts (anyway teachers are not experts in sexuality subjects).

I don’t want to remove teachers' authority. They will keep it, but they must express it in a sensible, sensitive and responsible way. With this teachers' profile, students will trust in their teachers and, at the same time, they will not create the illusion that teachers hold a knowledge out of doubt, something like a divine revelation that allow him to be certain and indisputable. Differently, teachers with this profile will point out that those who say they are illuminated are usurpers and are trying to take off everyone the noble responsibility to find your way.

Sexuality is the territory of the typical argumentative confrontation. There are sensitivities, cultures, values in confrontation, confrontation of everything that define the individuality of each one. It is a confrontation that is a game that to be civilized and sustainable has to be transparent in what concerns to the integrity and specificity of each one.


In the name of transparency and integrity, school sex education should make a decentralized approach, plural, inclusive, but not relativistic. The discussion of sexuality, such as the experience of sexuality, should tolerate and seek to understand all points of view, provided it remains untouched respect for others, untouched their integrity. For this reason the survey data were discussed in open classes, one meeting of the students of the class (in one case, it was possible to join two classes in the same lesson), class directors, other teachers of the classes and a representative of parents.

During an initial consideration, they were told that the data presented were not collected with scientific methodology; in these circumstances, everything we wanted was to stimulate the discussion and the starting point was the presentation of statistical data drawn from information gathered through the questionnaires (data published in previous posts in this blog).

To read more detailed information about debates with different classes click here.