The end of our trip in space and time

It's time to go. It's time to start new trips and new adventures. This was a nice trip, but, as everyone knows, each project has an adequate time and our time is passed. This will be my last post.

During more or less one year and a half we have been doing this journey. A lot of people were with us in the way. That's why this was a nice adventure and that is the main reason because I will miss this trip. We've been together discovering the way peoples of different parts in Europe and people of different ages think about love and sex and their specific way of behavioring in what concerns to sex.
It was a big challenge to face this delicate subject. From the begining it was clear that this is a subject that some populations face in a shy way or, at least, they don't talk about it in a confortable way. That's why some partners had an enthusiastic involvement in the beginning, but it wasn't necessary a long time until they realise that they were in trouble, because they didn't feel confortable, or because their school leadership (or the students or the parents) didn't feel confortable driving their eyes inside sexuality. This could have been a reason for us to give up this project. Some of us gave up. But the others stood. For the ones who stood, they realised that if some cannot stay in this project, that is a reason to investigate this subject at school work. It can't be a part of us which we ignore, because it is a part of us with a lot of influence in our lives.
We are finishing this project. Everything must be reviewed, of course. In this blog you can find what we've done. A lot of work should follow. We will see if we can come back to develop the project. For now we will make a pause.
In the top of this blog you can find links to the pages in which main activities developed in our project are detailed.
In order to perform the project, we've choosen freedom as a basic value. During this project time, this year and an half, we lived in a deeply transforming world , some of us changed their mission in their school, others saw the groups of students they teach be replaced. So, it was important the adaptability of the project activities to his school reality. We accept this, if the essencial goals were kept. This way, it was possible to drive our work to a deeper level. Each teacher worked with his students. Students debated the subject, talked with teachers, with friends and with relatives. It was the best way to avoid sex tabu. Publishing posts about the developed activities gave us the oportunity to know what partners were doing in the project and allowed us to compare ideas/values and discuss on them.
As a last word, I want to thank everybody who was in our «trip in space and time». It was a pleasure to be with you all. I'm specially grateful to Maria because of her intense and wise work.

Best regards from Portugal!

reflecting on our project

When I joined this project, a year and a half ago, I had my doubts about how such a delicate issue as sexual education at schools could be worked out in an etwinnning project. Jorge’s leadership in this trip proved that when teachers want, they can!

The project was extended in two school years, during which I had different positions at school and thus I worked in different ways.  The first year I worked with a specific group of students, meeting in the school library and talking (the photo shows our group during a meeting). We collaborated very well in the activities and writing the chain story, where students revealed aspects of sexual behavior in our area. That story was a starting point of a lot of discussions.  I won’t refer to the importance of such discussions, as my partners here have already mentioned them and I fully agree with them.

During the second year I worked in collaboration with another teacher in my school. We had the chance then to reach a wider audience and collect finally questionnaires from them.  Students tend to be shy to participate in such projects although they admit the importance of them. The use of English language during the second year was a problem but we decided not to give up but be flexible. We focused on the core aim of this project, that was discussing, thinking, and opening our mind in issues of sexual education. I gave students the chance to talk, even though their points of view were not recorded. Every question of our questionnaire was the starting point of discussions that made them all reflect on sexual behavior. It was also interesting to see the similarities and differences in thinking with students from other countries. Our school year ended early, so we didn’t have the time to discuss the results with my students. We will do it next school year, as the trip into human sexual behavior seems it’s never ending.

Sexual education in schools is a very delicate issue and a taboo for many teachers. With this project I was feeling not alone. I had Jorge and the other partners sharing with me worries and ideas. I’m grateful for that.

Thank you Jorge!

Maria

from the Greek team

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Mabel's Evaluation of the "Trip"

It was a privileged for me to participate in this trip. Unfortunately my contribution was brief due to many school work I had to do, but it was an enriching experience for me and for my students.

They felt challenged to participate in such a project, where older students, from different nationalities, shared their opinions about topics that also concern(ed) them. They felt they were not alone in this piece of paradise that is Portugal, but that there were several links of interest, worries, frustrations, fears and feelings among all these youngsters that could be discussed together.
The use of the English language was a problem to my students. They told me many times they wouldn’t be able to write directly to the blog whatever they wanted because they feared not to be able to write in perfect English. Probably (I hope) I made them realize or led them to reflect about the need to learn and use foreign languages. People need to communicate with each other and whenever we start something new,( that comes out of our routine) it is always hard .

So this trip in space and time allowed my students to give their first steps into a project like this and it really gave them the possibility to understand more about themselves and about the others. Moreover they also felt that it is very important to talk about issues that, many times, are still kept as tabus.

I do think etwinning projects are a wonderful tool to learn and to bring closer Europeans creativity and knowledge. Teachers and students have the chance to develop a collaborative work, working out together a lot of skills in real context and building up projects that are done according to student’s needs, what enhances highly their and our development.
As I love trips I hope to share my knowledge and work experience with this full of potential space and I expect to do it many more times…

To finish, I would like to congratulate Jorge Rocha and the other members of the project for this amazing work.

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.

A trip in (inner)space and time

Vincent Van Gogh, Shoes

It seems that there are trips we have to do deep inside (ourselves) to realize how different lives are. The trip I have been doing with my students for 2 years now has been tough but it has also been an enriching experience. They have taught me a lot about the meaning of life! I must confess that it’s been a truly “trip in (inner)space and time”
There are a wide variety of factors that can lead students to specific behaviour. As Jorge so clearly said, the environment and living conditions, the lack of family values and rules make my students face the dark side of life since early ages. They just live with feelings of rejection and anger and these feelings are reflected in their everyday lives: at school, with peers, with boy/ girlfriends, in sex, etc( of course that this is not a blind rule because there are some that don’t follow the path).
When life is so difficult, emotions are expressed in a not so beautiful way…

Mabel's Testimony - the value of sex in Lisbon sorroundings

Well, I work with students that are between 12 and 15 and I must tell you that the data shown in the questionnaire doesn’t surprise me in some fields. First of all, a great percentage of my students start their sexual life very early. In my opinion that happens due to many factors:
-their families don’t have an effective role ( a lot of parents have several jobs and aren´t at home, others have parents with social problems like drug addiction or they are even in jail and others don’t care at all about their children). The example they have at home is sometimes extremely hard to live with. My school has a considerable percentage of cases of abortion. This year I had some students from the 9th grade that had an abortion. The way students and their mothers reacted was amazing for me because it seemed as if they were talking about teeth extraction without psychological consequences;
-physical and psychological violence is also present among my students. They aren’t mature enough to understand the dimension and the importance of sex in their lives. Sometimes they use sex as a reflex of what they are used to live and watch at home and sometimes as a weapon used (without having that conscious) against themselves ;
- the concept of intimacy is changing among youngsters. In the past the first sexual intercourse happened later and it was something special, to share our intimacy with somebody we were in love with or that we loved. Nowadays, as Jorge said, it’s like a game or in my opinion just a way of having quick fun. They just do it and don’t think much about it. What is interesting to analyze is that this behavior is happening also with girls.
Sex and love is falling apart and this fact brings inevitably more problems to teens and future adults.

Sexual attitude - authors of physical violence in sexual relations

The following shape shows the results of our questionnaire concerning physical violence in sexual relations. We can compare differences in answers between people of different ages, different genders and different countries. In this shape people say they were authors of sexual violence.
Click on the shape, to see it more clearly.

Sexual attitude - physical violence in sexual relations

The following shape show the results of our questionnaire concerning physical violence in sexual relations. We can compare differences in answers between people of different ages, different genders and different countries. In this shape people say if they were victims of sexual violence.

Click on the shape, to see it more clearly.

Sexual attitude - psychological violence

The following shapes present the results of our questionnaire in what concerns psychological violence. We can see the differences according to different ages, different genders and different countries.
Click on the shapes, to see it clearly.

Sexual attitude - reasons to be sexually active

The following shape shows the results of our questionnaire in the topic inquiring reasons to be sexually active. Each one could chose from one to all given hypothesis. We can see the differences in answers of genders, of countries and of ages.
Click on the shape, to see it more clearly.

Sexual attitude - who was the partner in the 1st sexual intercourse?

The following shape shows the results of our questionnaire in the topic inquiring the partner of the 1st sexual intercourse and the nature of the relationship. We can compare the answers of people with different ages, different genders and in different countries.

Sexual attitude - to have more than one sexual partner

The shape bellow shows the results to the topics in the 1st column, selected according to the different ages, gender and country of inquired people. To see the shape more clear, please click on it.

First time

First of all I would like to point out that the number of collected questionnaires from my school is not enough to reach a conclusion on the average sexual behavior of adolescents in my area. Nevertheless, my experience gained during the last 7 years I get involved in sexual education gives me clues on how adolescents think and why they act so. 

Here is my explanation on some of the collected data:

Sexual behavior at a very early age (12) has been mentioned to me personally by a girl who was raped and a boy who was led to a prostitutes’ house by his own father. So I can’t see any will in this action from the side of the child. We cannot say that they agreed on what happened to them. I am also not sure if other cases refer to masturbation and not to a normal sexual intercourse at that age. Most students that filled the questionnaire were shy and didn’t ask any questions, even when they didn’t clearly understand what was asked.

Sexual activity at ages below 16 was a result of not clear and conscious decision, as it happened while the persons were drunk, during a party, most of the times. And if there is no real sexual intercourse at this age, for the reasons that Gonçalo Brás Gomes has very accurately mentioned, teenagers are exploring their bodies with sexual  acts, even without having any relation with the other person. That’s what struck me, hearing about the easiness of acting so. And it’s very clear that boys pretend to have emotions towards girls, so that they convince them to be with them.

Another interesting finding through my talking with my students was that most of the times when the first sexual intercourse happens at an age below 16, girls don’t do it again unless they find a boy they are sure to have a long-lasting relation or they keep having this first boyfriend for the next years and even marry him when they finish school. They don’t change easily sexual partners. Boys of course have a completely different attitude.

For me, this questionnaire was the chance to start talking with my students about issues that (as they told me) they had never talked with their parents about. Some girls told me that I did very well to start such a conversation in the classroom because they had the chance to hear how boys think on such issues and they realized the difference of attitude towards sex between boys and girls.  The data collected by the questionnaire are thought provoking but not concluding to general results.

Sex and personal conflict

Ana Nogueira (10ºB, Escola Secundária Henriques Nogueira), commenting on the post "The age of the 1st sexual experience":
«I would like to mention an important fact. In class, our teacher showed us the results about the age of 1st sexual experience. If we cross this information with the other results about the age people think they should have their 1st sexual experience, we see an alarming fact!

In some cultures, people think one thing and do another. There is a conflict in their minds. This can have serious consequences like lack of self-esteem, frustration

. If most people think they should start their sex life late but they start it early, something is wrong.

They can start with understanding what makes them think they should initiate sex late: religion, parents, fear, shame...

Then they must do their own choices and never forget that none of us should do or not do something because other's opinions. We can't regret a choice well thought and that doesn't go against our own values!»

All shapes of our questionnaire about sexual attitude

Now it's time to analyse all the data of our questionnaire. They are available in 2 different documents: one word and one pdf. Later I will publish shapes with crossed data.

The age of the 1st sexual experience

Here we have some data of our questionnaire concerning sexual attitude. In this case, we can compare data in order to understand the sexual attitude in different countries, in different generations. It's part of our tip in space and time.

Teenagers have the experience of sexual intercourse when they are too young! Please, pay attention how many youngsters start sexual intercourse before they are 16 years old. In Greece, more than 53% have already started when they are 15!

 In the 1st shape, 1st column, you can find the age of 1st sexual experience of the people that filled in the questionnaire in each country; «total» refers to the % of people in all the studied countries that had 1st sexual intercourse at that age; «others» refers to the people that have a different nationality.

In the next shape you can find the differences of ages in which people of different generations had their 1st sexual intercourse. The crossing data are the questions «how old are you?» and «which was the age of your 1st sexual experience?»

In the next shape you can find the differences of genders in what concerns the age of 1st sexual experience.

What do you think about this information? Which relevant conclusions do you think we can draw?

I'm really worried with people who start to have sexual intercourse before they are 12 years old! Can you imagine?! How can we expect this children to have responsability in sex?

I can't avoid to think maybe to have sex in that age is not a matter of their will. We can't forget that with that age, they don't have mature will yet!

SEXUAL ATTITUDE QUESTIONNAIRE

Welcome to our etwinning questionnaire about human sexuality. This is an important item in order to develop sexual education with students in our etwinning project.
Questionnaire is a result of several contributes. It is based on Maria Sourgiadaki’s and Jorge Rocha’s work on a questionnaire of Maria João Alves (leader of PPES in Escola Secundária Henriques Nogueira) and on a sexual education guide, approved by the Greek Ministry of Education. Finally, there are some questions suggested by students.
Translations from Greek and Portuguese to English are not professional.
Please, answer questionnaire trying to be completely honest. Your opinion is important so that we get information from your sexual attitude in order to analyse and discuss upon it. The whole process of getting information and its use will be controlled by this etwinning project team, which gives you guarantee of confidentiality and anonymity. Data will be statistically processed in an aggregate way.
Click in Questionnaire so that you can answer. Thanks for your contribution!

Sex, values, culture and human freedom in action

«After reading the post «A trip back in time» we were debated with two different opinions. The grandmother and mother of Mary. The grandmother of Maria despite being a generation older than the mother of Maria agrees with sex before marriage, but the mother of Maria who is less of a generation does not share this ancient custom, which leads us to conclude our thoughts and our tastes are influenced by our culture and our beliefs because even by the same family being a mother and grandmother of Maria have different cultures and consequently different opinions.


Currently, our society is not as conservative, because with the changing times, the customs and way of thinking of most people is changing, and we are having a more open mind to the various matters that were previously more difficult to address. Given the situation of this post, we agree that our society is currently in disagreement with the fact that the woman be forced to have sexual relations with the Turkish leader in her wedding night.

However, there may still be cases of people who agree with this. These people may have historical and cultural conditioning or psychological make them agree with this. Taking the example of a pedophile. This does not give freedom to the person who chooses to satisfy his own sexual desire and is not free because it is conditioned by psychological problems. Now, consider this action good or bad depends on the values of each subject or culture (subjectivity of values) and ethics of each.

That is, people's opinion depends on their culture and their beliefs. As the culture and beliefs, are influenced in our thinking and our decisions. Right and wrong and good and evil are concepts that can have different meanings for different cultures, which leads us to think that at that time, the chances for the Turks was having sex with the woman on her wedding night that she did not agree. This is an ethnocentric culture, because they are only worried about their own pleasure , not valuing the views of women, even to the point that they cut the breasts if they did not take having sex with them.

Currently this is an unacceptable situation for our culture.»

Bruno Camacho

Beatriz Esteves

Cátia Santos

(10ºC, in Henriques Nogueira School)

International day of women - women in our society

            As said in the original post, on the 8^th of March of every year we celebrate worldwide the International Women’s Day. These celebrations are expressed in different ways: some celebrate the respect, appreciation and love towards women, men express their love for women and others celebrate women’s economic, political and social achievements.

            The general assumption states that women are naturally passive, while men are naturally active. In our opinion, full human equality can only be achieved when men and women agree that those attitudes (passive and active) are appropriated for either of them.

            Like this, we can conclude that it is very important to educate ourselves as to the basic gender differences which exist between men and women and acknowledge that the differences exist. This way, we should use our differences to improve our relationship rather than to damage it. These cognitive differences should be recognized as long as we continue to make an effort to conserve and protect feminism and equality between the genders in the process.

            Many people question themselves why is there a global day of the women and not a global day of the men, due to the fact that on the human rights law we find the equality of race, gender, religion, sexual choice. However, in our opinion, we must look at this day by another perspective - there are profound reasons based on cultural issues that backup the existence of this day.

            In the Bible, the book considered blessed by most of the world population, we talk about God - powerful, unique, omnipotent and omnipresent - as being male. Jesus, the only son of God, is also a man, just as the first human created by God was Adam and was also male (Eve was made from one of Adam's rib). Popes, bishops and priests are always men, as well as the disciples were. Physically a man has by nature more physical potential, and it can’t be disproved scientifically, thus unwittingly giving men power in ancient societies in which the intellectual was much less important than today, and was therefore also considered the most capable and strongest to be the boss/leader of a group.

            In the animal life, for example, males of most species tend to be larger and are more able-bodied than females. Therefore when in flocks the leaders are the "strongest" males of the group. With this we mean that the superiority of men over women has always been part of the culture of most societies almost always. However, especially in the West some changes have been noticed in the practice of this ideal. Women have been gaining freedom, and therefore more opportunities to show their capabilities and limitations, that were blocked previously. It is with the incentive to promote opening opportunities to women that we believe that world women's day is important to exist.

            Currently, women have different rights depending on the region of the globe they are located in. In a Western perspective, the modern women have an active professional life, without letting the domestic life become passive. We agree with teacher Jorge when he says that men and women should be partners, both professionally and at home; this way, a woman can devote more time to her profession and rise to new heights in her career. In the Eastern perspective, women aren’t free and don’t have the same rights as men – they are professionally very limited and are "forced" to devote all their time to their domestic life, stressing that men don’t share their time with this activity. In the second perspective, women and men are not equal in terms of rights, duties and employment opportunities.

            In the recent decades, with the admission of young women in universities, women have manifested themselves better than the men at the academic level, which allows us to deduce that they are who will occupy the most important positions in the future society. It’s now that the woman may be expressed at a professional level.

            Today, in our day-to-day as Portuguese citizens, we've had women in senior positions. Our own school is an example of that, where the highest position is the executive director of the county and it is occupied by a woman. Us as students deal almost daily with male and female teachers - and according to our personal experience we could not discern any differences professionally and socially between teachers of different genders.  Hence we can conclude that perhaps sex has nothing to do with professionalism in a profession of intellectual character.

Comment created and posted by:

Inês Vieira

José Freitas

Tiago Rosado

International day of woman

March, 8th. This is the international day of woman. Congratulations to all women!
Anyway, this is time to think why is it necessary to have a day dedicated to the women. Then, we will find that women are discriminated all over the world. They're discriminated in accessing to education, discriminated in accessing to the working market, discriminated at home and primary victims of wars made by men. Equality and justice are great values that we still need to reach fight for, so that this intolerable situation can be changed. And we need to know that we have to be patient doing this fighting, because it is a long term job that must start now, immediately, because each minute passed, there are new injuries against women.

This fight must be taken by men and women and I believe that for me, as a teacher, and for my students, a good way to fight is doing a good job becoming ourselves more and more educated. Improving education is the best way to spread equality and justice in the world of men and women. So, students must know that in every day that they don’t do a good job in their studies, they are losing an opportunity to become our world better for women... and a better world for them is a better world for men also.
I'd like we (people of different schools and different countries) comment about the situation of women in the world of our experience: how is it working with our girls, mothers, teachers, etc.

A trip back in time

Reading Ines’ comment, about talking with her mother, I felt that it was my chance to grab and talk about my own experience, discussing about sexual behavior with both my grand-mother and my mother. Imagine that it happened some….25 years ago.

It was early 80’s, a rather progressive period on terms of sexual behavior. We were talking about my cousins getting engaged (the official step before marriage). For my grandmother it was natural that the new couple would live together from now on and would have sexual life. It was a very common attitude for the couple to get married when the woman was pregnant. And this was not something new! It was happening in Crete quite a long time ago.
But for my mother, who was not Cretan, that was kind of provocative, according to her beliefs. She was a generation younger than my grandmother but having not the Cretan culture, she was opposing to pre-marriage sexual intercourses. Wasn’t it strange?

My grandmother gave me an explanation of why Cretans have had this, let’s say “custom”. Going back in time, in the years where Crete was under the occupation of Turks, when a couple was getting married, the first night after the marriage, when it was supposed to be the first time of the couple to have a sexual intercourse, the Turk Chief of the area demanded that he would have the woman first. If she would refuse she was brutally punished with the cutting of her breast. How could Cretan people then survive this tragic fact they were facing? How would they be sure that the baby born was a Greek and not a Turk? They changed their sexual behavior and getting engaged was like getting married. The marriage was taking place when the woman was already pregnant. The same behavior was kept through the years even when the “danger” did no longer exist.

Without knowing the past, somebody would assume at that time that Cretans had an immoral attitude, since they had sexual intercourses before marriage, compared to others. But before judging, it’s better to try to find why. Every human behavior has its explanation.

Our new Partner - Secondary School of Camarate (Loures)

The Secondary school of Camarate is located in the suburbs of Lisbon and it has almost 550 students. Last year it became a TEIP school. That means it was considered a priority school due to some problems of its community, namely the social and economic conditions of the students and their families and, consequently their lack of studying habits, some disciplinary problems and low school results.


It’s a multicultural school with a considerable community of students that come from Africa, Pakistan, Ukraine, India and Brazil. Our Headmaster is also Bulgarian. Many languages are spoken in Camarate, unfortunately Portuguese and English aren’t very well spoken!

A lot of work is being done, however good results take some time to come up as well as changing students mentalities about the importance of studying.

It’s a nice school, with updated technological devices. It has 44 rooms very well equipped, labs, a library and some clubs (music and dancing, Capoeira, bike and theatre club).

This year we had some interesting activities that brought all the community to our school. We had a well known contest “Camarate School Idols” and a kind of “Oscar awards of Camarate.”

The end of this school year finished with a great party where students could sing and receive an Oscar for their performance during the year. It was a nice experience that motivated all the students to give their best to receive the award.

About me

My name is Mabel, I was born in a beautiful city called Covilhã, near Serra da Estrela, the highest mountain in Portugal. I’ve been teaching English for 16 years near Lisbon and I love the light of this city.

I love reading, painting and going for a walk with friends.

This Trip in Space and Time started long ago and unfortunately I only caught the train last September 2010.

Mabel (English teacher)

Happy New Year

All the best wishes for health, love and happiness.
Keep smiling!

Human Maturity - to have sex and to have vote: should this 2 subjects be linked?

Some days ago, Demosfen started a discussion about maturity of teens. The question was related with sexual maturity. Now some other students are arguing about political maturity. In this blog concerned with sexual education, I should ask if sexual activity and political activity are 2 parts of the same process of human development and a teen gets prepared to heve sex at the same time she/he is prepared to vote.

Let's read the thinking of José, Carla, Inês M.and Ana Marta about political maturity:
« As requested by our Portuguese teacher, we are here to post regarding the right to vote at the age of 16. Vote at 16, yes or no? (Portugal) According to our laws, we are legally adults at the age of 18. An age that opens the door to the legislative vote, to take the driving license for light vehicles and to be able to work full time. However, we start to have duties with the society earlier, at the age of 16. Until we are 16 years old, our parents or guardians are responsible for our actions, but from there we are seen and treated as young adults by the society, having to obey rules established for those who are considered adults, this is, a person aged 18 years or over. At 16 we can integrate the active society, have our first job, discount for the social security, begin to take the motorcycle driving license, beyond other things. We can also think of marriage and constituting a family and in case we commit a serious crime we will be judged in the eyes of justice as adults and punished as if we were 18 years old. Is it fair that a 16 year old, who is "mature" enough to comply with certain requirements for the society, isn’t treated as an adult, and isn’t given the same rights as adults, particularly with regard to voting mandatory? If between 15/16 years we are "forced " to make choices about our future, namely whether or not we continue our educational background, what area should we follow, what profession/school we should choose... Why don’t they let us also choose the destination of the country?» Ana Marta Carla Teotónio José Freitas Inês Morais

Who agrees with them? What about sex at 16?
It seems to me that, like a lot of you have said in other comments, we cannot fix an age (16 y.o. or other) and say that after that everyone is prepared. It depends on each one's process of growing up and everyone has her/his own rithm. Of course, there are a lot of citizens that are not ready to vote at the age of 18 y.o., but society have to establish a border and it seems to me 18 y.o. is a reasonable one.
Maybe the situation is similar in what concerns to sexual intercourse. However, concerning sex, we are talking about something very intimate. So, I'm not saying that everyone shoud have sexual intercourse at 18 y.o. I'm saying that for those who want to start their sexual relationships, maybe this is a reasonable reference.

Helena's testimony

«Like many others, at the age of 16-17 I used to dream to find a perfect man. One day I knew Sérgio. Everything was marvellous!

Suddenly our relationship became a quiet love relation. We were part of the same class, we saw one each other every day and, at night, we used to spend hours having conversations on the telephone so that we could share last news. In a summary, everything was going fine.
[...]
But, one day, Sérgio wanted me to feel that the «flirt» was not good enough for him anymore. He wanted to go deeper. It was a shock to me. It’s true everyone around us used to do it. But I couldn’t surrender: that was against my convictions, against my family, against so many things I could not forget.

Also I could not decide to give up my love for him. I was afraid. Afraid of loneliness and afraid of being unable to find someone to love me. He didn’t approve my convictions and used to talk about it to other people. I remember one common friend that came to me and she told me: “I think Sérgio has a lot of courage to keep going on with you! You don’t have the right to deny him what he wants! All you need is to take contraceptive pill.”

This situation continued until next Summer. Finally, as if I could not hold up the situation anymore, I decided to finish the relationship. It was not easy. I had moments of loneliness, because I didn’t dare to meet again old friends.

Lately, I found Alexandre, that loves me the way I am. Happily I was loyal to myself
Helena»

• Do you agree with Helena’s decision to finish her relationship with Sérgio? Why?

• How do you think she should had felt if she had surrender to her boyfriend claims? Why?

• Do you think Sérgio really loved Helena?

• What do you think about what Helena’s friend told her?

• Do you think that to take contraceptive pill, or to use condom, was a good solution to Helena’s problems?

• Are teenagers of 16-17 years old mature enough to have sex?

• Do you think a boy and a girl that feel physical attraction should have sex? If after that they finish love relationship, is it possible one of them to stay with emotional traumas? Who? Why?

• What to think about an eventual pregnancy? Who should take responsibility?

• Is a pregnancy possible, even if contraceptive cautions are taken?

• Is sex a way to get pleasure only?

Our new Partner - Secondary School Filipa de Lencastre (Lisbon)

 
Most students love to attend our school.

Since 1938 teachers, administrators, staff and parents collaborate to provide a good educational experience.

Agrupamento de Escolas D.Filipa de Lencastre is located in the center of Lisbon. There are approximately 100 teachers and 1200 students from elementary to secondary school.

It is a state school supported both by the Ministry of Education of Portugal and the Municipality of Lisbon.

www2.esec-filipa-lencastre.rcts.pt

Teachers
Our teachers are very well prepared and extremely dedicated to the education of their students.

Students
Our students are joyful, friendly and enjoy receiving guests.
They love meeting people from different cultures.
Getting good marks to enter university is one of their goals.
School is their second home!

Our list of FAMOUS STUDENTS is quite impressive:

• Ana Caetano – Pedagogue and daughter of Marcelo Caetano, Prime Minister before 1974;
• Carmen Dolores – actress;
• Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo – first woman to become Prime Minister in Portugal (1976);
• Maria Barroso – actress, writer, human rights activist, wife to Mário Soares, President of the Repubic;
• Maria José Estanco – first female arquitect in Portugal;
• Manuela Eanes –Wife to General Ramalho Eanes, President of the Republic;
• Natália Correia – Writer.

Our school was named after D.Filipa de Lencastre, Queen to King D.João I of Portugal. Her contribution to the country’s education and culture was extraordinary. She promoted a better relation between Portugal and England. The Queen died from the plague in 1415.

In 1940 Liceu Nacional D.Filipa de Lencastre was a school for girls only - 924 girls and 80 female teachers!

In 1979 the school name changed to Escola Secundária D.Filipa de Lencastre and by then boys and girls were accepted!

Cultural initiatives
Every school year lectures and different sorts of communications are part of our curricular and /or extra-curricular activities – careers, health issues, going to university are some of the subjects we may be dealing with. Most of the times these experts from the outside world are invited by the students or the teachers participating in the different school projects. We have three main areas of studies – Humanities, Science Studies and Economics.
Students can also participate in the Maths Olympic Games and the Biotechnology Olympic Games.

Sports initiatives
The school volleyball team is part of the national volleyball federation! Our girls are great! During the school year there are many different sportive initiatives.
Some of the boys play rugby or football, but the school has not got its own team!

Filipa de Lencastre team

Being "psychologically adult" and to be prepared to have sex intercourse

Here we have an interesting dialogue between one of our students and his sister:
«Acentfrio: hi sis)
Acentfrio: listen if you have time you can write me what for you means to be "psychologically adult"
Acentfrio: it is all related to that topic about "the right time for intimacy and sexual relations," that our teacher develops)
Acentfrio: I'll look at what you think about it and compare it to what I have ^ _ ^

Mary V: it mean to answer for your actions, never shift responsibility and the consequences on the others, be able to measure yourself with others - people close to you, to be able to find a way in all kind of different situations

«Acentfrio: psychologically adult can be associated with - ability to life for yourself, self-sufficiency?

Mary V: in general, independence and responsibility is when you are not under the influence of another people, and itself decided

Mary V: Well, old enough perhaps can even be minor (younger that 18), people who still dependent from parents Financial independence is not a criterion for here, while self-sufficient - yes

Mary V: not only "to live by itself, but also live near other people"

Mary V: Teen wants to break away at all costs, to show their independence, to defend his "world", while an adult measure their actions with the people with whom his life is connected.»
 
This is something I really like to be increased: each one of us involving our friends discussing this subjects. Congratulations for the both of you!

Wonderful comments! :)

Have you read the comments in recent posts? You should do it. It is wonderful to realise how clever are our partners in this blog, a lot of them are students and they do so interesting points of view!
To ilustrate what I'm saying, I publish here a comment written by one student of mine... it is evident my proud in my partners! In fact, they inspire and motivate me in such a way that to work here is a pleasure for me.
So, let's see what Inês Vieira thinks, answering the questions about «Helena's Testimony» (bellow):

«• Do you agree with Helena’s decision to finish her relationship with Sérgio? Why?

Yes, I agree with Helena’s decision to finish her relationship with Sérgio. I think it's necessary respect and patience in a relationship, shouldn’t be made pressures on these matters of personal and intimate nature. And, if her boyfriend couldn’t accept her decision, then it is because he isn’t worth her personal delivery or even her effort.

• How do you think she should had felt if she had surrender to her boyfriend claims? Why?
In my opinion I think she would have felt uncomfortable with herself if she had surrendered to her boyfriend claims, because she would be doing something for which she was not yet ready and would be against her own convictions. Something as important as her virginity shouldn’t be reduced to an experience which she feels discomfort, and all this just to satisfy the wishes of the partner, I think this is not right.

• Do you think Sérgio really loved Helena?
No, I think he never really loved her. If he loved her he would never put her under pressure and would have had patience for having given her time to feel sufficiently prepared.

• What do you think about what Helena’s friend told her?
Although I believe that friend is not one who says yes to everything you say, but someone who opens our eyes when we need, I believe that what her friend said was insensitive.

• Do you think that to take contraceptive pill, or to use condom, was a good solution to Helena’s problems?
What she really needs isn’t taking the contraceptive pill or using condom, what she really needs is feel prepared and comfortable with herself and with her partner.

• Are teenagers of 16-17 years old mature enough to have sex?
Maturity to have sex has no predefined age, is something that changes with education, culture and mindset of each one.

• What to think about an eventual pregnancy? Who should take responsibility?
I think both should be responsible, because pregnancy happens not only with the intervention of one, they are both needed. In case of pregnancy none of them are less responsible than the other.

• Is a pregnancy possible, even if contraceptive cautions are taken?
When sexual activity is responsible, and precautionary measures are taken, the probability of getting pregnant is low, although it isn’t 100% non-existent.

• Is sex a way to get pleasure only?
Sex is not just a way to get pleasure, we can be happy doing other things instead of sex. when two people love each other and feel very closely with one another, sex is a way to feel united and feel the complicity that exists between them.» Inês Andrade Vieira, nº 8, 11º B, From Portugal.

1st of December

I am late in publishing this post but in Greece people say: Better late than never!
Besides that, a world's day exists to remind us something that we tend to forget the rest of the  year. So, it's not a big deal that we missed the day. We keep working on the  cause though!

On December 1st, Despina and I, dedicated one of our teaching hours discussing with our 16 y.o. students about issues referred to our project. We talked about Helena's testimony, about contraception, about attitudes, reaching an audience of 85 students that day.

It's not easy to engage so many students in our blog, so I am posting here on their behalf. Even that way, the aim of our project is highly achieved.

What was obvious during our talking was the different point of views between boys and girls, in the question if a 16 y.o. adolescent is mature enough to have sex. Boys were saying that girls of even younger ages are having sex, so what's the big deal? They tended to deal with the discussion more lightheartedly than girls, giving a sign of immaturity that struck the girls.

My experience through the years that I am dealing with sexual education shows that at the upper secondary education students have a more responsible behavior than in lower secondary education, and that's a fact that highlights the need to address sexual education at younger ages.

I feel that the topics of our project are endless! I will try to keep my posts short though, so that students can follow them easier.

Take care, and remember that knowledge and awareness are the key to a healthy sexual life!

Maria and the Greek team

love, infatuation and physical attraction

I’m reading your comments on “Helena’s testimony” and among many others, a major question arises: 

• “How can a 16-17 y.o.  adolescent know the difference between love, infatuation or physical attraction? Is it easy to distinguish them at this age?

• Do men and women perceive these distinctions in the same way?

I would like to have your opinion!

New school year activities in our «trip in space and time»

Here we are with our 1st activity to be accomplished this school year. Teacher's team of the project expect you like it.

What we are proposing to you is to analyse «Helena's testimony» and to discuss it. It's a task to be done individually or in a group.

If you choose to work in group, you can join collegues of your class or, if you prefere, you can join your parents, your grandparents,  your friends, your girlfriend/boyfriend... well, everyone you want. What really matters is that you can improve your ideas about this relevant subject of your life and, at the same time, you can improve your skills in English language and your skills in ICT. Also, everybody envolved improves knowledge about different people from diferent cultures. If we think this way, this will be a very exciting task, don't you agree?... It's good to dialogue upon this interesting issue with people from so different points in Europe!

So, our methodology is: you read the testimony; you think about the subject; you (eventually) discuss the ideas you have about it; you write and submit your comment bellow in the post or you send it to your teacher to publish it in this blogue.

Teacher's team wish you GOOD WORK!

We have new partners!

Now we are almost in Christmas, we are happy because we can say WELLCOME to new students and teachers.

We have new partners from Portugal in our project: Escola Secundária D. Filipa de Lencastre and Escola Secundária de Camarate.

So, in this year, this is our team:

• Escola Secundária Henriques Nogueira, from Portugal
• Teachers: Jorge Rocha, Maria Conceição Gonçalves and Noémia Santos
• Escola Secundária de Camarate
• Teacher: Mabel Carrola
• Escola Secundária D. Filipa de Lencastre, from Portugal
• Teachers: Rosário Sequeira, Teresa Barros and Filomena Póvoas
• 1st Vocational Lyceum of Ierapetra, from Greece
• Teachers: Maria Sourgiadaki and Despoina Xomplaraki 
• Benjamin Franklin High School, from Romania
• Teachers: Rodica Dimitrovici, Roxana Diaconu and Stancurel Ramona 

Here we are again!

Back to work, in a new school year, with new students, new teachers but mostly with new ideas and plans for our project!
 
We will continue our trip in space and time as far as sexual attitudes are concerned, in an attempt to offer to our students  routes to explore and understand the so delicate but so important issue of sexual behavior.

Stay with us to see how an etwinning project can contribute to a better understanding of our life.

.

Our "Summer love" story

Read the 4th and last part of our "summer love" story, written by the Romanian team.


Sometimes life perplexes situations and leads to misunderstandings! Be open-minded!


Click here to read all "Summer Love" story. A very imaginative story, written by our students, narrating attitudes and consequences in our life, related to sexual behavior.

Analysing answers in questionnaire for young people

Our questionnaire for young people was answered mainly in two schools of two partner countries: one school in Greece and another one in Portugal. Schools from other countries that are in this project are late in this subject. So, we’ll analyse data we have at this moment. In future we can come back and compare information we have now with data from other countries.

Data we have got with this questionnaire don’t allowed us to take statistic conclusions, but, in spite of that, it’s relevant information about sexual attitude of young people of our schools.

We’ve got 83 people answering our questionnaire; 63 are from Portugal and 11 from Greek students. The rest came from several countries (even if them all are students in our greek school); we are not going to analyse their answers now.

People who answered questionnaire in Greece are older than in Portugal. In fact, 82% Greeks are 18 years old or more (4 male and 3 female); Portuguese people with that age are 13% (4 males and 4 females).

Now, let’s analyse some answers of this group (aged 18 or more), comparing answers in Greece and in Portugal.

All these Greeks think that «having sex with somebody I'm in love is (or is supposed to be) (...) wonderful and/or normal behavior»; one of them thinks it is also exciting. In what concerns to these Portuguese people, 7 in 8 think it is wonderful; 5 think it is also exciting; 4 think it is also healthy; 4 say it is also safe.

So, all answers in both countries express an attractive attitude on this topic.

Let's analyse the question «having sex with a strange person, just for adventure, is (or is supposed to be)...»:

· Greeks:
It’s «stupid» for 2 females; the other one says it is «wrong»; it is evident these females have an attitude of rejection towards this topic.

Males don’t agree in this subject: one says it is «dangerous»; other says it is «wonderful, normal behavior»; other says it is «exciting»; and, finally, other says it is « normal behavior, dirty, dangerous».

So, we can say males are more confused about this topic: some have an attitude of attraction; others an attitude of rejection.

· Portugueses:

It's «Exciting» for 4 of them («exciting» and nothing more for 2, both males; «exciting and dangerous» for 2 females).

Other 2 females think it is «stupid» in one case; «dirty, dangerous, wrong and stupid» for another female.

This way we can conclude female have a different attitude concerning this topic: they give a more negative semantics on it.

In fact, we think that «exciting» is a positive meaning; although, there is no female giving this topic simply that meaning. 2 of them are in what I call a psychological conflict (the ones who say it is «exciting and dangerous»); remaining 2 females think it is something clearly bad and because of that they say «dirty, dangerous, wrong and stupid».

Males think differently: only one male have similar bad semantics associated to the topic (he says it is «dirty, dangerous and wrong»); remaining 3 give good values to it: it is «exciting» for 2 of them; it is «normal behavior» to the 3rd.»

9% from Greece and 30% from Portugal says, in question nº5, «Having sex with a strange person, just for adventure, is (or is supposed to be) (...)dirty»; in Portugal are mainly girls who say so (12 girls and 7 boys).

As we can see, there is a lot of meaning in the answers of our questionnaire. It should be a hard task to analyse everything and post it here. It was possible to go deeper in the lessons in witch we thought and discussed upon these data.

Now I invite everybody to go on with analysis in the post bellow. Some interesting conclusions will be then possible.