The topic of adolescent "love" education has not been fully studied and practiced in China. Educators all over the world mostly provide some knowledge about the development of teenagers to middle school students, primary school students or community teenagers according to their own knowledge background, enthusiasm, ideas and abilities. Some are called "moral education", some are called "physical hygiene", some are called "political and ideological education", and some are collectively called "adolescent education".
As a sociologist who studies marriage and family, a group of colleagues and I began to try to develop "Loveeducationforadolescents" in the school system from 1993. By 2000, it has developed into a series of love education projects for teenagers marked by "greenapple", which has a certain influence in all walks of life and has won the support and funding from relevant institutions at home and abroad. Here, I will impart the following superficial knowledge to experts, scholars and bloggers in the industry, in order to have more educators join the "adolescent love education project", which is still the first undertaking in China.
First, the narrow and broad dimensions of youth education. Youth education should include two levels: narrow sense and broad sense. Puberty education in a narrow sense is an education with sexual health education as its core and main line. It should tell the basic knowledge of life's gestation and birth, the physiological law of puberty development, the changes of physical appearance of boys and girls, the physiological and psychological motives of sexual desire, sexual attraction, sexual impulse and sexual catharsis, the knowledge of sexual safety and physical and mental protection, and the knowledge of preventing unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and drug abuse.
Broadly speaking, adolescent education, as a kind of love education, should help teenagers learn life courses about gender friendship, love, mate selection and marriage, understand the basic concepts of gender differences and gender roles, and gain the moral significance of mutual respect and equality between men and women. Of course, the education of love should also teach the values of sex, the social behavior norms and moral responsibilities of sex, the legal boundaries of sex and the prevention of sexual violence.
If the narrow sense of adolescent education mainly involves biology, medicine, public health, nursing and psychology, then the broad sense of adolescent education must involve a wide range of social and humanistic fields such as philosophy, sociology, ethics and spiritual culture.
Why should adolescent education in a broad sense be advocated as the education of love and put into practice? This may be related to my own painful feelings as a sociologist and social work practitioner. Over the years, social science and mass media have given different explanations to the statistical data of the frustration of young people's love life and the sharp rise of the failure rate of marriage in China, and many related sad stories have puzzled the general public. My interest is not in statistics and tragic plots, but in exploring: why do so many young men and women not enjoy the expected love? Why does modern marriage, which starts with free choice of spouse and combines romantic love, get into trouble? Why do some men and women who have suffered from failure repeat their previous unfortunate mistakes after entering the marriage again? I tried marriage counseling for nearly 10 years in the 1980s and 1990s (mainly collecting my research examples, and there was no professional service of psychological counseling and marriage counseling at that time). I deeply feel that it is difficult to find the causes and treatments for those unfortunate marriages from morality, law, medicine and even psychology. Words such as "disharmony in personality", "disharmony in feelings", "no common language" and "disharmony in sexual life" are the usual complaints of the parties. However, a careful review of their growth experience, premarital communication and married life reveals that behind their "feelings" and "sexual life", there have long been some "long-term" hidden dangers, among which there are many shadows left by adolescence, the key period of life growth. At that time, many middle-aged couples came for help. Their marriage experiences are similar: most people have not received any education about love before marriage, and they don't know about gender differences, marriage preparation, husband and wife life and so on; Some people have never made friends with the opposite sex before marriage, and the first person to throw herself at them will have a marriage relationship with them; There are also cases of dissatisfaction, "extramarital affairs" and even violent injuries caused by the disharmony of husband and wife's sexual life, all of which show that one or both husband and wife are at a loss about modern men and women's love and ignorant about marriage, including the general deviation of sexual concept and the lack of sexual knowledge.
Then, when should modern men and women begin to learn compulsory life courses such as sexual intercourse, friendship and love, marriage and sex, and equality between men and women? Of course, the answer should not be "married". In fact, adolescence, when both sexes begin to naturally attract and make friends, is the best time to learn the course of love and marriage preparation.
Secondly, regarding the purpose and content of adolescent education, one of the primary purposes of adolescent love education is of course to improve sexual health, because sexual health is the basic condition for future sexual love. The World Health Organization put forward the concept of "sexual health" in 1975: "Integrate the physical, emotional, intellectual and social aspects of sex, thus actively enriching personality, promoting communication and enhancing love." If the sexual health of contemporary men and women reaches this level, will there be so many difficulties and problems in communication, harmony and cooperation between the two sexes and the establishment of a long-term love relationship, that is, marriage? It can be said that sexual health is the foundation of a happy marriage and the element of a happy life.
As a kind of love education, adolescent sexual health education should have the following comprehensive purposes and contents. 1/5 12345 Last page