Reading report

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 12
Title: The birds, the bees and the taboos
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Sep 13th 2007

Vocabulary

Posh: 1. Fashionable.
Bonfire: 1. A large outdoor fire.
Euphemistic: 1. The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered blunt or offensive.
Flipchart:flip: n. 8. The act of flipping, especially: a. A flick. b. A short quick movement. c. A somersault. adj. 9. Marked by casual disrespect; impertinent.
Genitalia: 1. The reproductive organs, especially the external sex organs.
Hurdle: n. 1. Sports. a. A framelike barrier to be jumped over in certain races. b. hurdles A race in which such barriers must be jumped. 2. An obstacle to be overcome. v. 3. To leap over (a barrier). 4. To overcome; surmount.
Fuss: 1. Useless or nervous activity; commotion. 2. Needless concern or worry. 3. An angry or fretful protest. 4. A display of affectionate excitement and attention
Ruckus: 1. A disturbance; commotion.
Tinkering: 3. To work as a tinker. 4. To make aimless or experimental efforts at repair; fiddle.
Stripping out: 1. a. To remove the covering from. b. To undress. 2. To deprive, as of honors or rank; divest. 3. To remove all excess detail from.4. To dismantle piece by piece. 5. To damage or break the threads of ( for example, a screw) or the teeth of (a gear). 6. To rob or plunder.

Main ideas

¨ Sex education has never been Indian schools`strong suit.
¨ A new sex-education programme introduced by the central government was rejected in many Indian states.
¨ The attempt to make sex education universal in a country where sex is rarely discussed, is always going to be tough.
¨ Some expressed anger over the inclusion of information on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
¨ Some think that teaching sex educacion is an attempt to create a homogenised culture.
¨ Many Indians have serious misconceptions about what sex education involves.
¨ The central government has formed a committee to review the course material.
¨ Others think that the attempts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases must be done by the health department rather than the education department.

Personal reaction

This article is about the attempts to incorporate into the school curriculum in India, a new sex education programme which main initiative is to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
But as in the Indian culture the sex issue is not openly discussed, many states have rejected to incorporate this programme.
Religious groups argued that this is just part of an attempt to import western costums that are different to the Indian values and their culture. This is clearly part of a misconception about what sex education involves.
So although in the western world this sort of education policy is highly incorporated, in the eastern countries this work will take much more time and effort. Their narrow minded way of thinking do not let them see that their huge percentages of sexually transmitted diseases is closely related with their misconception of sex education.