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CM . . .
. Volume IX Number 8. . . . December 13, 2002
As a parent, grandparent, or classroom teacher, your heart may not skip a beat when a child asks about dinosaurs, snowflakes, or objects in the night sky, but do you react in a similar manner when you're asked "How does sex make babies?" or "Why don't I have a penis?" According to Meg Hickling, a registered nurse who has spent 28 years of her professional life as a sexual health educator, answering questions and talking about sexuality and sexual health in an open and factual manner should begin in the preschool years and continue throughout life. She maintains that children who grow up knowing about bodies and healthy sexuality are not only protected from abuse and exploitation but also accept the information in the same matter-of-fact way they accept information about any other subject. They carry no emotional baggage and will not find responses that are scientifically accurate frightening or embarrassing. Given this stance and the conviction with which it is held, Boys, Girls & Body Science: A First Book about Facts of Life, is an obvious extension of Hickling's work. She has written a charmingly illustrated book for families with children four to seven years in age.
The story takes place in Mrs. Miwa's early years classroom and tells about Meg's own teaching of "body science" to the 15 children in this class and their responses to the information she provides. La Fave captures the lively, fervent, and social life of young children in his colourful illustrations that have the appearance of a crayon contour drawing filled-in with watercolour. The same technique is used for the anatomical illustrations, whether the illustration is to scale or magnified. The decision to draw and colour the internal and external reproductive organs exactly as the classroom-based story is illustrated reflects Hickling's intent not to see sexual health education as anything other than essential knowledge for all to possess and understand. Whether you choose to read Boys, Girls & Body Science with the young children in your care will depend upon the ease with which you talk openly about sexual health and reproduction. Hickling's story incorporates the language of biology to describe the body parts that are private for both boys and girls, the mechanics of "having sex," fetal development, and the processes involved in vaginal and Caesarean births. Her writing is direct and unambiguous as the following excerpt shows: "Let's see
if you can tell me something. You know that boys have two openings
between their legs, the urethra and the anus. How many openings do
girls have?" If, on the basis of the except provided, you are tempted to dismiss Hickling's book as inappropriate for young children, stop to ask yourself the reasons for your reaction. Do you believe the text and La Fave's accompanying illustrations are too explicit, that too much information is presented, or that knowledge about sexual maturation and the reproductive process will encourage promiscuity and curtail childhood innocence? Reactions like these are one reason Hickling has adopted the notion of "body science" and the goal of providing children with the information that will help to make them as knowledgeable of their sexual health and as free to discuss their sexual health, as they are their nutritional and physical health. As a parent and a science educator, this seems like a good idea to me. My suggestion, however, is that you prepare for educating your children in the manner Hickling suggests by knowing before you begin what it is you want your child to understand and to feel. More Speaking of Sex: What Your Children Need to Know and When They Need to Know It, also a book by Hickling (1999), would be an excellent place to start. Ideally, Boys, Girls & Body Science should not be read word-after-word, page-after page without pause. The story of the health educator in Mrs. Miwa's classroom pales in comparison to stories developed in the literature for children. The message, however, does not. Each new term, each statement, and each of La Fave's illustration is an invitation to talk, to clarify meanings (both personal and biological), and to question. When read cover-to-cover, without thoughtful discussion, it reads like many textbooks and non-fiction science books that provide information in the belief that all interpretations will be those the author intended. Finally, I want to bring attention to the naive image of the nature of science implicit in the text and to the dialogue represented in Mrs. Miwa's classroom. What is involved in learning to think like a scientist? Is it simply using a language that enables one "to talk about embarrassing things without feeling shy", saying "interesting" as opposed to "yuck", or accurately repeating the pronunciation of a new scientific term? I endorse Hickling's body science approach to sexual health education and suggest that the children in her book are learners who are being helped to think as informed and reflective human beings, not scientists. The context in which this learning occurs is an early years classroom, but the classroom portrayed is not representative of many I have visited. Time in a real school day is used to create community and the negotiated codes of conduct that enable a classroom community to flourish. The shouting and groaning and yelling and using the top of one's voice that is described in the story may suggest to pre-school children that this is how one converses in school and when one interacts with a classroom guest. I wonder also about the hidden message implicit in the giggling responses and laughter of the children to Meg's questions about private parts and "where the [male] urethra comes out" and am curious to know why Hickling models the use of "scientific names" for penis and scrotum and testicles and five pages later has Zack ask the question in the excerpt above, "Do girls have balls?" It would seem more constructive to represent the mature understanding she is hoping to cultivate. Recommended. Barbara McMillan is a professor of early and middle years science education in the Faculty of Education, the University of Manitoba.
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