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I'm a Teacher and Today I Talked to My Students about Porn

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by seth, May 2, 2017.

  1. seth

    seth Fapstronaut

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    I'm a first year teacher, and today I was working with a group of three students. All male, 14 or 15 years old, in the 9th grade. There was about 10 minutes left, and they had completed their work, when one of the students took the other persons phone and made a comment about how there was porn on his history.

    I decided to make this a teaching moment. I've shared my story with porn with about 20-30 people in my life, so I've gotten good at how to approach it. I always start with explaining the coolidge effect, and going into how the dopamine effects your brain. I've gotten very comfortable with sharing my story too, especially nowadays, when I can honestly add that I haven't watched in several months.

    But this is a different crowd. So I took a different approach in telling them about it, but I wasn't as clear as I could. I was able to get two points across: the dopamine rush you get from porn messes your brain up, and that porn is like tobacco was before the 60's (everyone thought it was ok). I could see one student seemed surprised by this, so I got through to at least one student, but the other two seemed to be taking it lightly. Also, they came back with saying, it helps with knowing "how to thrust", to which I tried to make the point that porn is the worst way to educate yourself about sex. But, I stumbled a lot here, because I didn't want to step over any lines, especially when talking about sex.

    Perhaps, I should have just shared the story the normal way I share it. Also, I should have had them look it up. Sent them to "Yourbrainonporn.com" and had them tell me something they learned. I don't know if I'll feel comfortable bringing it up in the future, so it may be a lost opportunity.

    Any thoughts?
     
  2. ethan.s

    ethan.s Fapstronaut

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    I think you did alright. Even if you had shared your story a different way or directed them to "Yourbrainonporn," they're still 9th grade boys. I imagine it would be hard to get through to them with anything in terms of learning lol. Who's to say it would've gone better or worse either way?

    It's a shame that the destructive nature of porn isn't as apparent as it should be, especially to younger teenagers, but at the very least you tried to explain it to them, and hey, you got through to one of them, right? Don't beat yourself up for it, almost everyone who's been exposed to porn at such a young age will continue to watch it through their adolescence. If it really does turn into a problem they realize later, you've provided them with some good information, and hopefully they can use it for themselves! I think you played your part well.
     
  3. seth

    seth Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for your comment. Halfway during the conversation, I decided my only goal was to plant the seed, the idea in their heads. At least now, one person has told them that porn can be destructive. It took me until I was 20 to learn for the first time that porn is actually harmful.
     
  4. YngwieWanksteen

    YngwieWanksteen Fapstronaut

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    I think like you said, you planted a seed and good on you for that.

    Remember getting the drugs talk in high school? I didn't take that as seriously as I should have. I doubt I would have taken a talk on porn seriously either. You never think it'll happen to you.

    I think you did good, I would have a very hard time trying to tell students that.
     
    Michael5iLVEr likes this.
  5. Cax

    Cax Fapstronaut

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    As a parent, I'd rather have a teacher speak about caution like you did instead of the "everything is sex positive!" garbage being doled out today.
     
    Bel, seth, Michael5iLVEr and 2 others like this.
  6. Aarius

    Aarius Fapstronaut

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    Perhaps you could tap into their desire to brag about being good at sex. Although it may be inappropriate in a school environment you could tell them about PIED and how embarrassing that can be when you've actually got a partner.
     
    Michael5iLVEr likes this.
  7. Im studying to be a teacher and briefly mentioned the dangers of porn to my students too. But I didn't have sufficient time to go deeply into it. I think you did a good thing. The way I'm thinking of approaching it is in the wider context of theme studies (I teach English) where I will have my students study a novel, film and poetry that touches on human dignity and things that rob us of our dignity. Then I will have them brainstorm different things that take away our dignity like war, prejudice, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, etc, and hopefully someone will bring up porn. And we can discuss the ways that these things harm us physically, mentally and spiritually and harm our relationships and our society.

    It would be easier if I was a health teacher but because of my subject I have to link it to literature and ideas about human nature. What subject do you teach?
     
    LakeLand and Michael5iLVEr like this.
  8. Jonasvw

    Jonasvw Fapstronaut

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    You did it just perfect. Because all you can do is warn / tell them about it. There is no way you can obligate them to not watch porn and stuff. Feel free to share these forum and the website to them, and the rest is up for themselves. Remember how you were as a kid? thinking to know it all better.

    I wished my teacher could warn me for the dopamine etc. Instead he was saying it was perfectly healthy... U sound like a good teacher man! (y)
     
  9. Michael5iLVEr

    Michael5iLVEr Fapstronaut

    I think you did good! As Jonasvw said, you can't stop them from watching porn. I think that you could tell them a little, even if it is embarassing. That way, you would be more open to them amd they may have received it differently. As a 15-year-old student myself, we know much more things than you would think. Also, we tend to hear more someone who talks like us and tries to "decrease" the age-gap between us.

    If you find a chance to open up again the subject, go for it. You know how bad it is for our early years to watch porn. It destroys our childhood.
     
  10. I Free I

    I Free I Guest

    As long as you feel like you did your best, that's all that matters . If you feel like you still want to show your students the "light" , by all means try again !
     
    Man With No Name likes this.
  11. seth

    seth Fapstronaut

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    I'm overwhelmed by the positive feedback. Thanks very much guys!

    I'm actually a math teacher, but I have a decent relationship with most the students that I can talk a bit more openly with. But I didn't want to get too explicit about sex, so I didn't articulate it as well as I have in the past.

    Anyway! The next day the one student who seemed to be affected by this, came early to my classroom (like he normally does) and I wrote down the website yourbrainonporn.com on a slip of paper and gave it to him. Coincidentally one of the other students who was in that group also came in at that time, so they both saw the website. They walked away and then came back.

    The other kid said, "Dude it's just words!"

    The fucking kid thought I was giving him a porn website. -.-

    I can understand that though because the word porn was in the name of the site, but I have a feeling he totally missed my point. I might try talking to the first kid though one more time, but I don't want to pester him about it. I'll tell him to just read at least one article. Just educate yourself. You don't have to stop if you don't want to. But just please learn what it does to your brain before it's too late. Maybe, if I'm feeling like it, I will tell him about PIED too.
     
    Bel and Man With No Name like this.
  12. Man With No Name

    Man With No Name Fapstronaut

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    Bel and seth like this.
  13. Poseidon

    Poseidon Fapstronaut

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    You should tread lightly on the subject of porn. Those kids could go back and tell their parents all about how the teacher discussed porn with them. Before you know it, you've got conservative over-reacting parents complaining at board meetings and protesting in front of the school. Then you'll be out of a job.
     
    Bel likes this.
  14. Bel

    Bel Fapstronaut
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    Do they even teach sex ed any more in school or has it become too taboo. I remember ours was laughable. Maybe 2 days spent on it. This was the 90's. The most I remember about it is the teacher putting a damn condom on a banana , whoopie. Recently while talking with some younger friends I am astounded about how naïve and uneducated they are when it comes to sex. Literally it's like everyone wants to talk about oral sex and look at it like it's no biggie. Maybe because porn shows it without showing the diseases they can and do get as if they had actual intercourse. Sometimes I felt like I was the only one cognizant of stds from oral sex......maybe bc my mom never had"the talk" but made me sit smack in front of the TV as she popped in the nastiest dvd about STD's I can remember. Close ups of genital warts will freaking kill all libido quick for awhile I can attest. Also for me as a girl , the way too close up vaginal birth one did me the hell in. I was 14 , those images popped up in my head over the next 4 years . So something good happened even if I puked my brains out during lol. But I digress, it just seems like sex is everywhere but noone seems to really know all the damn pitfalls that can accompany it. :/
     
  15. Poseidon

    Poseidon Fapstronaut

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    I think you have to get a permission slip signed by the parent beforehand.
     
  16. Bel

    Bel Fapstronaut
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    How f-ing dumb...do these parents live in a damn closet.....I chose not to have kids bc of what my occupation enlightened me too about the general population, but for God's sake nothing is being done at home. Everyone is pushing kids through being kids and making them into little adult speaking robots....they might talk mature but science has shown that little hormonal blob of brain doesn't fully stop developing before 25 or 26, which makes porn at young ages that much more detrimental. :eek:
     
  17. You did good Seth, a few seeds sewn - what else can you do as a maths teacher?

    It may be a short video would appeal more than a text heavy website. Here are a couple of examples...



     
    seth and Bel like this.
  18. seth

    seth Fapstronaut

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    @IGY excellent suggestion with the videos. That hadn't occurred to me, since I'm an avid reader but the reading is definitely an obstacle to getting the content for the students. Thanks.
     
  19. Steve Sancteria

    Steve Sancteria Fapstronaut

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    First of all, it´s really cool that you are teacher by heart and not only cause you wanna earn that good cash while having long holidays (depending where you teach).
    Through my 13 years of school, only very few teachers did teach topics that really improve people, such as setting goals, stop whining around etc. and those teachers really earn to be recognized as teachers, cause they wanna improve the life of other people every day.

    However, while A LOT of people like it when I talk about self improvement and the sub topics that come along with it, they are not interested in implementing it into their own life.
    They are interested into the topic but not in actually using the information to improve their life.
    It might be an effect of that consumption thing, like people watch endless many YouTube videos but only to sort of entertain theirselves and that´s it.

    So don´t worry if only 1 of 3 students got interested, you can´t force everyone to start focusing the important things, in the end, it´s all about the interests and so the choice of the students.
    10 minutes and you probably changed the whole direction of 1 person for better, I think that´s pretty worth it :)
     
    seth likes this.

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