One comment repeated by the characters in my novel, The Chronicles of sex education is that in the absence of sex education, children learn about sex from their friends. However, the novel was based in 1980, before New Jersey schools high began to engage students in peer counseling.
Valentine's Day 2008, I read about a mini-controversy involving peer counseling in a radio news site New Jersey Web. The news coverage came from a school in New Jersey high: Clearview Regional High School in Harrison Township in the southern part of the state. There, the parents are opposed to peer counselors, high school students and seniors, freshmen advice on a variety of topics related to sex education. The model of counseling from a program called Youth Pep. Designed by the Center for Leadership Training Princeton (not affiliated with Princeton University), Teen Pep has been applied in over 50 public schools garden high in the last eight years. Therefore, Teen Pep is not a new program and school districts have had time to investigate his background, only now, a school has made the news.
Teen Pep train not only students but faculty advisors, to work one on one, but as a team in various counseling situations. Schools recruitment Teen Pep working with Princeton Center for a minimum of two years and there field supervision visits by qualified professionals to help ensure that the program is running smoothly. A school dedicated to teens does Pep considerable intellectual investment and a financial investment to work. Part of this investment is to explain this program to parents.
Which brings me to lesson number one: if you're not ready to take this investment seriously, do not make them.
After reading about the incident at Clearview High, it became clear to me that the fault lies not with the program, but with the school administration. It would have been easier for them to consult parents and clergy from the start, since it is supposed to do. I realize that teachers are opposed to this, they did in 1980, as well, but sex education is an issue where parents and clergy believe they have important knowledge and opinions.
I was interested to read that an advisory board was formed after parents objected to the individual aspects of the program. That should have been in force since the first day.
Which brings me to lesson number two: after consultation with parents, decide what issues students are qualified to discuss with their peers.
parental objections in Clearview emerged from the idea that "children were teaching children to have sex. But there had to be clear differences among the subjects of adolescent peer counselors are allowed to teach, and they had to be covered by a qualified sex education teacher, but he did in the press. Parents deserve to know if you asked before school started. I realize that pro-abstinence organizations also use the young speakers, and its programs should be subject to review same parent as the same orientation program.
Then came the lesson number three: make sure that qualified teachers.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes the need for qualified teachers, which means that a teacher must be certified in the subject they teach. That applies to sexual education as anything else. In the example of Clearview High, the leader of the program was an English teacher. When I arrived at the family life education, I learned that sex education instructors were more likely to come from health education, home economics or social studies, and nursing. It would also mean that the directors could become qualified teachers sex student who handle personal affairs as part of their job description.
Pep is working adolescents appears in most schools, only one school is in the news complain, but those who participate in this program should consider offering an alternative: use degree candidates in counseling and education to advise students.
This would not be peer counseling, but it would appease the parents who care about teaching children about sex. Also contribute to professional development for sex educators.
Stuart Nachbar EducatedQuest.com operates a blog on education policy, politics and technology. He has been involved with education policy and economic development as an urban planner, government affairs director, software executive and now as a writer. His first novel, The Chronicles of sex education, sex education and school policy in 1980, New Jersey, won an "Editors Choice" selection of iUniverse.
