Education for young people and children as empowerment in institutions

Sarah Wabbel and Lothar Sandfort had invited a large comprehensive school in the Lüneburg area to take part in educational courses for their annual health day. That was in June 2019 and was aimed at the entire seventh year of this KGS (children and adolescents between the ages of 12 and 14). In the preliminary talks we were able to convince the school management to try something new. We believe that the traditional portrayal of the biological foundations of sexuality and the massive warning about dangers are more likely to corner young people than to strengthen them. Each class experienced three units of one and a half hours that day, one with us. Sarah Wabbel and Lothar Sandfort led three units (1st / 2nd hour) (3rd / 4th hour) (5th / 6th hour) with two or four classes each. Sarah Wabbel worked with the girls, Lothar Sandfort with the boys. This is how pupil groups of 60 to 80 participants were created. Sandfort worked in a sports hall, Wabbel in a large common room. The sports hall offered enough space, which was very helpful to Lothar Sandfort as a wheelchair user. The common room was too small, which prevented the students from spreading sufficiently. What is new is our approach of conveying your own body as a treasure, because what you appreciate, you protect. This general folk wisdom enables us to bring youths closer to their bodies as lifelong potential for many wonderful hours of sexual communication. The more competent people know how to protect their bodies, the more harmless they bring it through their lives. Describing sexuality less than threatened, rather as a resource worth protecting, is more fun - everyone. Our approach includes meditative and discussion elements. The students discover their bodies and their possibilities in silent empathy through a dream trip and discussing question and answer games. You can't do more in an hour and a half with such large groups. The methods can be flexibly adapted to the respective groups. Boy groups and girl groups of one year are to be accompanied very differently. Girls are about two years ahead of boys in their psychosexual development. This is due to the different cultural needs that have developed in evolution. If girls can already approach the topic of sexuality in a discussion, boys still need the protection of being able to approach them in silence in amazement. A large number of boys still have to make their difficulties air as jokers, which can interfere with meditations. The modern dominance of pornography in the development of attitudes is frightening. The freely available porn representations on the Internet are understood as "sexuality", not as industrial exploitation of archaic triggers. Our culture must counter this with new strategies as quickly as possible if there is a punishment for irreparable damage to cultural role models and sexual communication. Protection programs experienced for the first time in the 7th grade are almost too late. Our empowering methods are demanding in each case, but are perceived by the participants as pleasant in everyday school life and should be adapted to start earlier and be repeated annually.