TEENS TEACHING TEENS TO ABSTAIN FROM SEX

When an adult approaches a room full of teen-agers with a discussion about sex, eyes roll, chins plop down into the palms of hands, and conversation shuts down. However, when those same students discuss sex among themselves, the conversation is more flowing, frank and honest.

That's why peer educators are the focus of the Postponing Sexual Involvement program (PSI). This program, offered by the University of Missouri Extension Office and Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, depends upon high school students to get the message to young teens that it's alright to abstain from having sex.

"They respond easier to us than to someone who's like, 40," said teen leader Laura Primonato, a senior at Central High School. "We're teens just like them and we're facing the same pressures."

Thirty-six teen leaders from Central High School, Oak Ridge High School and Notre Dame High School have been trained to teach the PSI curriculum to seventh or eighth grade students this year. The teen leaders visit classes at Louis J. Schultz, Oak Ridge, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Mary Cathedral and Trinity Lutheran schools for five class sessions to teach young people how to develop skills to resist pressures to become sexually involved.

Teen leaders rely on videos, question-and-answer sessions and role-playing for much of their interaction with students. Students hear lectures from grown-ups all the time, they said; they want to talk with other teens.

"The first week they were pretty wild and would just stare at their papers like they couldn't believe we were talking about sex," said Ben Roeger, a Central High School junior. "Now they're giving good responses. I think it's pretty effective because a lot of people think everybody's doing it, and we can take the pressure off because we're telling them that's not true."

The program, in its second year, has grown tremendously since it began, said Carol Saarf, a health department nurse who helps supervise teen leaders during their sessions. What began as an experiment with a handful of students at one school has blossomed to a program involving eight schools and reaching about 360 students, she said.

"Once the kids get over the embarrassment of talking about sex, some of them really get into it," she said. "We give a pre-test and post-test to see if we're reaching the students, and last year we were surprised by how little they actually knew in the beginning and how much they had learned by the end. We know we're reaching them."

Pat Renard, a health teacher at Schultz school, said she thinks the interaction with peer educators and other classmates is beneficial to students. Teen-agers need more opportunities to learn how to interact appropriately, she said.

"I think they have learned a lot just by having interaction with each other," she said. "Our health classes are gender-separated, and this is their first mixed class on sexual education. At this age, they're not given enough appropriate times when they can interact with each other."

The ultimate goal for the course is to teach students to withstand peer pressure and maintain their decision to postpone sexual involvement. Does the class achieve that goal?

"Yes," said Chris Daniel, 12, of LJ Schultz. "They taught us to just express it and tell it instead of hiding all your feelings and stuff."