“Hello my little Vikings!” – Scandinavian Professor
That is how every class begins. Pretty funny if you ask me.
Now onto what I really am posting about…
So far this summer I can’t say that anything has really stood out from the two classes that I am taking. But, today there seemed to be a bunch of stuff that suck out in my mind. Mainly, the most interesting material comes from my Scandinavian class. The class is about the sexuality in that region and it is interesting on how different it is from our culture here in the United States. I can’t say I completely agree with everything that is brought up in that class, but that is my world-view colliding with theirs.
Today we learned about how the 9 step plan on education of sexuality is done in Norway. To give you a little information about this before I list the steps, just know that step one begins in 2nd grade and each step covers one academic year.
- Love for Parents – Showing your love for your parents
- Love for an Idol – Loving a celebrity or teen icon
- Love for someone (secret) – Secret crush
- Tell a friend about your love
- Tell the person you like about your love for them – Confronting the person you love
- Hand in Hand – Pretty self explanatory
- Kiss me
- What feels good – Physicalness
- Maturity to make love
After she finished talking about this I had a lot of questions in my mind. I didn’t have the time to ask them because I had to head right off to work. But, I was just thinking about what she said in class and compared it to what my upbringing was like when compared to how they are educated.
The first thing that struck me was how they use the word Love. I was asked today, in class, before everybody, the following question:
“Ryan, when did you have your first love?”
I sat back and I was just thinking that my definition of Love is much different than yours. Now, there were girls that I liked throughout my days in the Eden Prairie Schools system, but I would never really consider it Love (to an extent). I answered the question to meet her half way, but I was not afforded the chance to explain myself for my reply.
In either case, I would not consider them Love, but more of an affection or a liking. I think that many of you know what I mean. But, I was just wondering if that is how they define Love how does my definition of Love fit into theirs. To me, their Love was more of a initial liking. A first glance sort of thing.
Also, it amazes me how young they start on sexual education. I mean, 2nd grade seems really young to me. But, hey, my formal Sex Ed class was in 7th grade or something. I don’t even remember.
I am still trying to figure out why I posted this, except that I found in interesting on how different their approach is from ours…
Interesting Statistic: The average age of sexual activity is 16.5 years in the United States and 16 in Scandinavian society.