Schools Need to Use #MeToo Across Curriculum

There’s a “whole lot of sensitivity” in schools about what teachers should and shouldn’t teach when it comes to the nitty-gritty of sex education, but according to Dr Melissa Kang, one thing is clear: real life examples are a gateway to discussion.

Indeed the #MeToo movement is more than just a hashtag – it’s an anti-sexual assault crusade that can be used in all classrooms to spark important conversations, the professor from the University of Technology Sydney argues.

It just requires teacher to tackle the thorny issues head-on.

“I think that it’s an opportunity to use a real life example to look at (sexual) consent, that’s the focus that I took anyway…

“We are talking about adults and how they are treated by other adults with more power, in a workplace in particular, but also in private relationships, so it just gives teachers a resource to draw on.

“And it doesn’t have to happen in health class, I think there are lots of really good examples in literature and film.

“I was kind of proposing that it can be right across a whole lot of curricula, really.”

Kang is now calling for a re-frame in how we teach teens about sexual consent and their rights.

– Sarah Duggan

Image by Morgan Basham from Unsplash

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Schools Need to Use #MeToo Across Curriculum

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Schools Need to Use #MeToo Across Curriculum