What I've Always Wanted to Ask You

«Free the nippels» demands a cardboard poster in the schoolyard of the Freie Waldorfschule Hannover-Bothfeld.

The students of a sixth grade class approached the topic of sexuality with authentic, beautiful, inspiring and intimate questions. Sexuality is often still a taboo subject, especially at Waldorf schools, where some class teachers are afraid of this topic and some parents want to protect their children from coming into contact with questions about sex and identity too early. Yet children and young people have many questions about sex, the body and love. But there is rarely space to address these questions appropriately. For many students, the internet is the only source of information.

At the Widar School in Bochum Wattenscheid, an experienced class teacher taught two units of sex education. One in fifth grade, then a second in sixth grade. The class teacher invited midwife Kristina Ostmann, who worked with the students on some theoretical basics on the topics of anatomy, the menstrual cycle, contraception, self-determination, respectful treatment and issues relating to the LGBTQI+ community.

Beforehand, the class teacher had set up two boxes in the classroom into which the students could anonymously throw slips of paper with questions. The boxes were labeled: «What I've always wanted to ask a boy» and «What I've always wanted to ask a girl». Following the theoretical input from Kristina Ostmann, the class was divided by gender. In the absence of a male colleague, the two groups were then supervised by midwife Kristina Ostmann and myself as the school social worker. The questions were read and discussed together. It was decided together whether the other group's question should be answered or whether it was too personal a question that the students did not want to answer. The groups then read the questions to each other.

Over 150 questions were asked. They answered most of them themselves. It took around four hours per group. This gave the students the space and time to discuss many topics. There were often surprised reactions to some of the topics. For example, the girls' question to the boys «Do you think it's nice when we put make-up on?» was answered with «Do what you feel comfortable with! We don't think it's important.» Conversely, the boys asked the girls whether they attached much importance to muscles. The girls' answer was: «Muscles are nice, but they don't matter, because it's more important to us that a boy is friendly and loving.»

It is often claimed that young people are superficial, only concerned with being «instagrammable» – a term that defines whether something is attractive enough to be posted on Instagram, for example – at any given moment. But other conclusions can be drawn from the answers, which were given seriously and sincerely. These young people have a need for genuine encounters, for honest exchanges and values beyond outward appearances are really important to them.

«Have you ever seen porn?» or «Have you ever masturbated?» were also questions that were of interest. Questions that many young people presumably ask themselves about their peer group, but which are apparently seldom expressed across gender boundaries. At this point, we want to encourage them to engage with peer group-oriented sex education and offer it at school. Who better to answer these questions than those who are affected by them? Adults, parents and teachers can usually repeat about 500 times that there are more important things than appearances. Nevertheless, many young people emulate idealized and, in serious cases, even AI-generated ideals that do not correspond to reality and their own possibilities. It can be healing for young people to hear from their classmates that there are things and values that are more important to them than appearances. And yes, to come back to the questions mentioned above: Some sixth graders have also seen porn, some have already had their periods and are interested in an appreciative exchange on these topics if the necessary framework is provided.

Schools can make a good contribution here. So let's do away with the fear of contact with topics related to sexuality! Let's use the joy and curiosity of the students and offer them spaces to deal with topics related to friendship, belonging, sexuality, appreciation and self-determination beyond the Internet.