What About Education? Part 7

Unless you have seen their eyes ...

 In 2002, I was introduced to the children of one orphanage in Ukraine. After touring the facility and experiencing the hopelessness of the situation, my heart was broken. When I was spoken to, I could not reply. This reaction was only because of what I saw. It was not until many years later that I began to understand the hidden secrets of life for these children in the orphanage system.

A bit of history will shine a bright light on what I will share with you in this article and the next. Stepping back in time about thirty years, during the Soviet Union and shortly after its break-up, sex, having children, and abortion, were looked at quite differently than they are today in Ukraine.

In soviet times, sex was taboo outside of marriage. Within a marriage, as children were conceived, they were a welcome addition to the family. In many cases though, if the second child was conceived too soon after the first, abortion was a normal option. There was little, if any, information available for the general population about sex and contraception. (Actually, all information that was available was controlled by the Soviet Government. The Soviet system was anti-family, focusing on work and reproduction of workers.) Little attention was given to planning to have or not to have children. Abortion was considered a normal solution for unwanted pregnancy. It was not uncommon for a woman to have ten or more abortions in her lifetime.

Today, Ukraine is filled with written information, the Internet is available to everyone who can afford it, and sex outside of marriage is looked at with much more freedom. Abortion is no longer the normal solution, but rather contraception and planning are desirable. Even so, abortion remains a solution in some cases.

With this in mind, consider the orphanage system. It is a boarding school for children from difficult homes and children who have no parents. This system is a government facility. In 2002, there was very little attention given to the children in the orphanages. The children were treated as non-citizens, therefore their education about sex and morality was limited, if not completely absent. When children would go home for the summer break, if they had family to go to, a girl might return to the orphanage in September, pregnant. Few, if any options were available. The doctor or nurse would take the child to the hospital for an abortion.

In this short article, you can see the great need of the children, particularly the girls, in the orphanage system to be educated about sex and morality. What About Education? Part 8 will continue the discussion about the real needs of the children to understand sex and morality. Their future depends upon it.

What About Education? Part 2

In Part 1, we revealed that sex education, morality, and family are the three instruments that will cut the chain-link in the cycle of poverty.

Beginning with sex education, we will explore it from possibly a different perspective. When a child views the body as a positive entity, this begins a healthy foundation. Understanding sex and how it works takes away the mystery of sex, eliminating the “dirty” label, the need for street information, and prepares the child to make health decisions when confronting the views of sex in the world at large.

In my opinion, the strongest factor in building and maintaining a healthy attitude about sex is discussion in a family setting. When children don’t have access to healthy answers, they experience stress, and begin to become secretive about their need for answers. This, in itself, separates them from open communication. They may begin to develop negative ideas about sex.

Jumping forward to puberty and beyond, sex becomes a major factor in the social interaction expectations of peers. Now the questions are: should I or shouldn’t I, do I want the experience, what will people think, do I care what people think, could I get a disease, and what will the results be in the future? Without healthy sex education, many of these questions probably will not even cross the mind of the youth. Have you ever heard a youth say, “Well, I never thought about that.” Sex education promotes thought. It teaches us to consider the outcome of our actions.

 This leads us to morality. Morality may be seen as a list of do’s and don’ts, but I see morality as a guideline. Guidelines seem to be more acceptable than a rulebook, more intellectual, and more thought provoking. When a youth has a moral foundation, he/she will approach each situation, sexual or otherwise, in a thinking mode. I believe that the youth will approach all of life in a thinking mode, evaluating each situation with some degree of wisdom. Of course, it is much more involved than these few words, but I want to lay the foundation for the series.

Finally, family is the social cornerstone for the development of the child. Having parents, a mother, and a father, to nurture the male and female psyche balance in the developmental stages, is very important. I don’t think that this balance is very common today, but it does exist.

People, from birth to death have a need, a deep inner need, to belong to a relationship of family. No matter how strong a person seems, he/she needs mom, needs dad. It is how we are built. Family is an intricate part of who we are as human beings.

In Part 3, we will look at the Ukrainian orphanage system, (the Internat). How does it differ from the orphanages of other countries. What are the living conditions like? Most of all, what are the futures of the children?

What About Education – Part 1

 

A result of Soviet un-family concept.

Orphan or from bad family, they are alone.

Many debates have occurred about education over the years, everyone has their opinion, and many people have theories, so I will do my best to write with an interesting new perspective. My article will begin with an overview of the basic needs of education from the perspective of preparing children to become responsible adults.

What is the opposite of a responsible adult? Being more specific than to state the obvious, an irresponsible adult, the answer must be an adult involved in criminal activity. The results of improper or incomplete education often will result in criminal activity. Why? Because people are not completely prepared to function successfully in job and society. We will briefly look at the basic education first.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are the core of survival in the world, but those alone will not suffice. Science, geography, art, music, history, economics and social studies are some of the additional subjects that add to understanding the life experience, but these are still not enough. The soviet education went to great lengths to expand the understanding of each subject, but, in fact, this was not enough.

Life in the soviet system was a forced lifestyle. Not only were children required to study high-level courses in high school, but also they were require to find work after completing their education. If a person was out of work for more than six months, he/she was sent to prison. Can you believe that?

What is missing? Maybe the answer is about family. A wholesome family is the heartbeat of a healthy community. How does this happen, where does it begin, what is the starting point? I believe that sex education, morality, and family structure, are three of the main starting points.

There has been great debate about sex education over the last 60 years. Can sex education be looked at without religious foundation, without rules and regulations and still have a positive outcome? If morality is taught along side, it can. If the value of family is taught as an outflow of the two, it can.

The point is this. When teaching about sex, the end result must be expanded upon. In the past, pregnancy, abortion, single parent homes, and STDs have been the results focused on for not having sex outside of marriage. Of course, getting married so that you can have sex does not provide a good outcome either.

In part two, we will begin to unravel why sex education, morality, and family are the instruments that will cut the chain-link in the cycle of poverty. Illichevsk, Ukraine is a port city, a seaside resort, with a growing economy, yet we have a serious problem of poverty that will not go away. Continue with me as I unravel this problem that is common to many cities.