We met the students from Tartu University and local Japanese at the square in Tartu. They gave us a tour of the town. We visited churches, universities, statues and botanical gardens. The most impressive of all were the statues. There are many of them in Tartu, and each one depicts the history, art, or condition of the person who made it.
We personally got to know one of the students, Mia, and we discussed a variety of subjects in a café. She liked Japan and had been sightseeing there, so she showed me photos of that time and we talked through about the differences between drinks and food in Japan and Estonia to political issues such as racism, LGBTQ and elections.
The most memorable part of my conversation with her was about the issue of sex education in Estonia.
What kind of image do you have of Estonian sex education? At least, I had an image that it seemed advanced because it is in Northern Europe. In fact, Estonian sex education is highly evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a model education, starting from elementary school. In reality, however, there is a big difference between urban and rural areas, and we learned that advanced sex education is advanced only in a few urban areas. It was also interesting to learn that the content of sex education depends largely on the judgment of teachers. In Japan, although the content varies to some extent from region to region, it is based on the Courses of Study, so there should not be a situation where progress is completely different from school to school. Of course, there is a national curriculum in Estonia, and classes should be conducted in accordance with this curriculum. However, in the case of sex education, which is the subject of my visit, teachers have a great deal of discretion, and children seem to learn different things from different teachers. For example, Mia herself had an opportunity to learn about safer sex from a teacher when she was in the third grade of junior high school, but a friend of hers whom she met in high school told her that she had never learned about it at all because her teacher was conservative about sex education. He also said that no matter how much teachers try to teach it, in some cases it is difficult to do so due to opposition from parents.
These teachers' decisions and attitudes toward sex education for parents have a significant impact on sexual minority children. Mia, who told me that she is bisexual and that many of her friends are also sexual minorities, told me that inadequate sex education by teachers exposes them to bullying and triggers doubts and negative feelings about their own identities. This can lead to questioning and negative feelings about one's own identity.
Finally, what I learned and felt from the reality of sex education in Estonia is that no matter how well-established sex education is in the system, the understanding of teachers and parents is essential for it to be fully implemented in the field. However, if sex education is institutionalized, it is necessary to build a system that can provide after-school support for teachers and parents, such as continuing efforts to promote understanding of the need for sex education and the importance of sex education. If this is institutionalized, we have learned that it is necessary to establish a system that can provide teachers and parents with after-support, such as continuing efforts to promote understanding of the need for sex education.
The social status of people who are sexual minorities is a problem in Estonia which I had thought was relatively advanced in terms of the gender ratio and social participation of men and women.
I was able to notice some of the differences between Japan and Estonia, as well as some commonalities. There are many things that Japan can learn from Estonia, such as the gender ratio and the high level of transparency of the government in terms of politics.
In addition, being able to listen to things that are not usually discussed in detail with friends in Japan and being able to express my own opinion was a great experience during my trip to Estonia. I hope there will be more opportunities in Japan to discuss social issues such as these and other things happening in the world that people are interested in.