A Tricky Blended Experience

This was the first year I have had to start the year 'meeting' some of my students online. New year, new school, new experience! Not only have the past two weeks been challenging because of teaching online to students who I have not met yet, this was only for some of my classes! South Australia decided to have Y7 and Y12 students face to face and the rest of students online. This meant I had to switch my energy levels and general 'vibe' much more frequently than usual. I found this super hard and mentally draining.

I had no clue where to begin trying to develop relationships across a screen. This wasn't something I had experienced before. I genuinely didn't realise how much easier it was to engage students and try to start discussion when I already knew them! Because Adelaide also has had few lockdown experiences, majority of students wouldn't turn their microphones on, let alone their cameras! 

Naturally I turned to Twitter and got some great ideas as can be seen below. Andy Milne's post was also helpful to get me thinking and for some starting activities/resources. Finally, I reread through my previous posts tagged engagement to try and get some inspiration. My reflection after a webinar facilitated by The Education Hub reminded me of some key things to consider too.

For the first time I’m starting my year with some classes online learning. Looking for get to know you/relationship building activities for meeting kids! 🙏🏼🤞🏼 @carmelhealth @NicholasFerroni @ScottAmpersand and anyone else - any ideas?? 😬

— Georgia Dougherty (@_gmdougherty) February 1, 2022

A few things that I attempted over the last two weeks (from several people's suggestions) include the following;

- A survey to compare the things myself and students have in common

- Personality tests for students to discuss their character strengths and how they can be utilised in our classroom as well as the character qualities they would like to develop

- What 5 things in your home would you save to be stranded on an island and why, then a discussion around what each of these things and decisions mean for the group 

- Projects that develop key skills students will need throughout the course such as technique breakdown or skill analysis using YouTube videos and designing their own camping trip

- Group contributions to shared spaces such as Google Jamboard

- Scenario based learning prompts and discussions

- Small group discussions for questions/queries/challenges (which I also do face to face to give student choice how they use their time)

This half online and half face to face experience has been really strange and I am glad that it's over! I cannot imagine what it must have been like for teachers that have/had hybrid within the same class, that's a whole different level. I empathise with anyone who has been in this space or similar before and here's hoping this is the end of it!

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

At the end of last term we had Dr Tessa Opie from In Your Skin visit the Y8 HPE teachers for a Relationships and Sexuality Education PD. I was proud to see how ahead New Zealand is in this space - there were even Kiwi resources used such as the notorious pie ad.This year Pedare has started an RSE programme with the Y8 students and this was the prep for it. 

As many know, sexuality education is one of my passions (see here some posts that reflect this). As a result, there were lots of reminders throughout this PD around gender, sexuality and stereotypes (the key topics of the unit). If you are learning or new to this area of the curriculum, the genderbread person is always a great place to start. The visual clearly helps to differentiate between sex, sexuality, gender and expression. So much discussion comes from this picture alone. I often then use the Real Sex Talk videos (especially the gender one and the sexuality one) to create further discussion.

Without elaborating on each of the below points, these are a few things that I was left thinking about after our session with Tess. I feel leaving them as points may encourage you to also ponder and complete further research;

- "The issue isn't porn. It's the complete lack in our society of an open, healthy, honest conversation about sex in the real world." (Cindy Gallop - Twitter here)

- Consent is a noun, not a verb

- Body autonomy can be taught at any age including kindy - Do you want a hug or a kiss?

- "Don't put the red dot on the traumatised kid's folder" (Tess). This was referring to removal of students from sexuality education - just because a student has experienced trauma, does not mean they don't deserve the education or want to be there. 

- "There is a very real difference between feeling uncomfortable and feeling unsafe" (Tess). 

- We are aiming to empower students. If they can own their own Medicare card at 15, can we empower them to feel comfortable to go and get an STI screening and/or contraceptives? 

- "The more positive you feel about your own sexuality, the more likely you are going to have positive sexual experiences with someone else" (Tess). 

- The impact of having teachers that aren't competent or confident teaching sexuality education can be significant. 

- "Pornography is the most prominent form of sexuality education for young people today unfortunately" (Interview with Maree Crabbe as embedded below).