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I bumped into a teacher friend earlier who looked horrified. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me he'd just been given his course syllabus for next term.

He teaches several subjects, I'm not sure of the grade, I think they're about 11-12 year old, but one of subjects he teaches is science, and he showed me the science book he'd been given to teach from. A large part of it consists of reproduction. I didn't look at it too much, I wish I had, but the bits I did browse were about about mammal reproduction. I'm not sure if it went into human reproduction or not. I was laughing too much at his reaction to having to teach it and ended up putting the book down.

I have to admit, I'd be extremely uncomfortable teaching that sort of thing. I'm surprised it's even in the school curriculum. I don't know why, maybe I've massively misjudged Cambodia, but I'd have assumed that Cambodia, being quite a conservative country, would leave these things to be taught at home by the parents?

Does anyone know, just out of curiosity, if sex education is commonly taught in schools here, or do you think it's more a case of his school simply picking a science book at random for the students to learn from without actually bothering to look inside at what it contains?

sex "education" is an embarrassment worldwide
but they'll get nothing at all at home

Sex education in school at this time is even more crucial than ever, not because there is a paucity of information about sex, but rather there is a serious imbalance in the information that teenagers selectively assimilate for the development of their sexual consciousness. There is a need to guide and educate them about sex to ensure that they practice safe sex and act responsibly if they happen to indulge in it.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50598353/d ... n-schools/

cambodian-culture-and-language/sex-educ ... 28584.html

^ yes, but what is the attitude of parents and grandparents towards this type of education in schools? Do parents know about it? If they do/did know about it, would they support it or be against it (on the whole)?

Well it's pretty much irrelevant in this day and age, as pretty much everyone young or old can access educational videos on the interwebzs. Kids can get a good idea of how things work by checking out titles like "Weapons of Ass Destruction" and "Dykes Of Hazzard".

violet wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 7:49 pm ^ yes, but what is the attitude of parents and grandparents towards this type of education in schools? Do parents know about it? If they do/did know about it, would they support it or be against it (on the whole)?

There's a part of the country that for a long time have maintained "love huts" for young people to have intimacy and privacy in their courtships when they're old enough - as young as thirteen, I believe. For parents or grandparents in this area that have love huts I'd imagine they'd be quite comfortable with the idea of their children receiving sex education, and perhaps welcome it. (An interesting article I posted some time ago on CEO explains these huts. I'll post one link below.)

On the whole however, I think the societal value or importance placed on a girl maintaining her virginity is such that sex education would be seen by most parents as a catalyst to their daughter's corruption.

For anyone who hasn't read the love huts articles, there's one from Vice here.


Kajeanh Mom, 20, shows one of the maiden huts still standing in Khoun village, Ratanakkiri. Photo by Eduard Merigo.

by Aisha Down
10 December 2018

The Struggle to Save Teen 'Love Huts' in Cambodia

n the days of Cha Bai's youth, the Kreung people did things differently. Every girl who came of age left her parents' house to sleep in a small, low hut nearby. Kreung people call the huts the "maiden huts," or "houses of the young women." They've been building them for as long as anyone can remember, long before the decades when Khmer people came to settle the far reaches of Ratanakkiri.

They build them to allow young people to experience courtship on their own terms, says Cha Bai. "We were shy of our mothers and fathers! They knew young men were coming over to sleep with us!"

Sometimes the affair—"sleeping together"—would last a few nights, says Yan Vuy, the village chief of nearby Kacheung. The couple would come together, then part without blame. Sometimes, though, it would last weeks or months. That's when the parents came in.

"They'd wake in the morning and see the boy coming out of their daughter's house, and they'd know: 'Oh, that young man there is sleeping with my daughter!' Then they'd ask themselves, 'What's he like?'" says Vuy.

In the years of the maiden huts, Kreung girls could freely take boyfriends and leave them without judgement. And they kept their huts as long as they wanted to, sometimes into their late 20s

.

full https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/jpy7 ... n-cambodia

It's a dying practice among a rapidly Khmerizing tribe. It's interesting but often gets misreported or misinterpreted internationally as "Cambodians allow their kids to have love huts" etc. It was only done within a small group of the "Kreung" tribe.

OMG you would be alright with these two in there !!!!!!, the legs would need to be concreted into the ground.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 9:01 pm It's a dying practice among a rapidly Khmerizing tribe. It's interesting but often gets misreported or misinterpreted internationally as "Cambodians allow their kids to have love huts" etc. It was only done within a small group of the "Kreung" tribe.

more interesting than marginalization would be what is the cultural thinking behind the practice?

Nothing like this I take it !!!!!!,