In-service training for teachers
Upcoming training: Budapest, Hungary, 22-24 April 2016
Last trainings: Pécs, Hungary, 20-22 February 2015| Agárd, Hungary, 27-29 August 2014| Székesfehérvár, Hungary, 28-30 March 2014|
30 hour-long training for teachers (grade 5-12), school psychologists, youth helpers, kinder garden teachers, nurses, parents . The main goal of the training is to provide a basic introductory methodology and a set of self-reflection skills for teachers who might deal with sensitive, sex-related topics in schools and similar institutional environments. Our goal is to help participants to find ways to integrate these methods and exercises into their daily work in schools.
Expected outcomes
This training unit provides a basic introductory methodology and a set of self-reflection skills for teachers who deal with sensitive, sex-related topics in schools and similar institutional environments. Although participants will also deepen their understanding of the concept(s) of sexuality, this unit focuses on improving teachers’ psychological skills that help them to define their own boundaries and make them personally capable to handle intimate issues.
– Participants gain skills to reflect on their students’ and their own non-verbal behaviour;
– Participants learn how to recognize, set up, maintain or move their personal and professional boundaries in a teaching situation in order to keep their competence and confidence and protect both the teacher and his or her students in sensitive situations;
– Participants understand better and exchange ideas about the term “sexual culture”. How our beliefs, values and cultural norms determine our sexuality. They will also gain an insight to the varieties of sexual cultures;
– Participants will be able to define what sexuality means in their particular teaching context, what aspects of sexuality might be relevant in their daily work;
– Participants will be able to improve their own pedagogical tools in school sexuality education based on the applied exercises;
Brief description of the training
Participants become aware of how our own norms, values, cultural background influences our sexuality. In a teaching context this awareness is inevitable not only because in many situations it is hardly possible to separate our personal sexual identity (as we are mothers, fathers, singles or lovers, heterosexual or queer, etc.) from our professional one, but because we as teachers are role models and convey many un-reflected messages to our kids as a whole person. Our training unit is based on discussing the main norms and values we share or don’t share both in pedagogy and sexuality. The aim is to help improve participants’ understanding on the holistic approach and democratic values in sexuality and improve their capacity to accommodate, negotiate, adjust to these differences and to include those in teaching situations in a way that makes them a resource rather than a source of frustration, insecurity or conflict. Since this training unit is mainly focusing on teachers self-reflection skills, their professional and personal identity and self-development, it might be considered to use as an introductory unit combined with other training units such as sexual history, detailed school-sex-ed curricula, etc.
Methods/techniques
This training unit relies on active, experiential, cooperative learning methods, applying a non-formal approach and using changing-pair exercises, interactive, embodied activities. The activities presented here presuppose an approach that assigns an important role to peer-teaching and to an indirect way of facilitation.