Sex education for very young children?

[stephanie]

How do teachers in a nursery in BeiJing conduct sex education for children Aged 3 to 5? and How do teachers in a nursery in BeiJing teach sex education to children Aged 3 to 5? How do teachers in a nursery in BeiJing teach sex education for children Aged 3 to 5? which of the three sentences is better? Please help me! I was very confused.

 

[probus]

Hello @stephanie and welcome to the forum. Note that I have changed your thread title. Titles should include some or all of the words asked about.

I can see little to choose between your three alternatives. They are all acceptable.

 

[stephanie]

Hello @stephanie and welcome to the forum. Note that I have changed your thread title. Titles should include some or all of the words asked about.

I had no idea that sex education was ever offered to such very young children. In any case our site is about the English language and not about other kinds of education, so your question belongs elsewhere.

I'm not asking about the method of sex education. I just want to know which of the above three sentences is the correct expression.conduct education for sb，teach education for sb，teach education to sb，I don't know which phrase is correct

 

[probus]

It looks like our replies to this thread crossed. I amended my reply to say that all three are fine in my opinion.

 

[stephanie]

Hello @stephanie and welcome to the forum. Note that I have changed your thread title. Titles should include some or all of the words asked about.

I can see little to choose between your three alternatives. They are all acceptable.

Thank you！I'm sorry to bother you, but I also want to ask whether "teach sth to sb" is a fixed phrase in English expressions, and "teach sth for sb" is not accurate in English expressions. I don't know which of the two prepositions "to" or "for" is better?

 

[emsr2d2]

Which of these three sentences is better?

1. How do teachers in a nursery in Beijing conduct sex education for children aged 3 to 5? and
2. How do teachers in a nursery in Beijing teach sex education to children aged 3 to 5?
3. How do teachers in a nursery in Beijing teach sex education for children aged 3 to 5?

Please help me! I was am very confused.

I'm not asking about the method of sex education. I just want to know which of the above three sentences is uses/contains the correct expression: conduct education for sb somebody, teach education for sb somebody, or teach education to sb somebody. I don't know which phrase is correct.

Note my corrections above. Dictionaries use "sb" and "sth" to save space. We don't need to do that here so please write the words out in full.

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank you! I'm sorry to bother you, but I also want to ask whether "teach sth something to sb somebody" is a fixed phrase in English expressions, and if "teach sth something for sb somebody" is not accurate in English expressions wrong. I don't know which of the two prepositions "to" or and "for" is better.

Please note my corrections.

In most contexts, you'll need "teach something to somebody". You can say you're teaching something for somebody if, for example, you're a teacher and you're covering for another teacher who's absent. You would say it if you were teaching a class on their behalf.

 

[stephanie]

Please note my corrections to your three posts.

In most contexts, you'll need "teach something to somebody". You can say you're teaching something for somebody if, for example, you're a teacher and you're covering for another teacher who's absent. You would say it if you were teaching a class on their behalf.

Thank you！I have another question. If I make a sentence with the phrase "teach something to somebody", I make a sentence like how do teachers teacher sex education lessons to children? Am I using the phrase ”teach something to somebody “correctly in this sentence?

 

[Tarheel]

Say:

How do teachers teach sex education to children?

Or:
.
How do teachers teach children about sex?

What you teach is the subject. Therefore, in my opinion the second one is preferable.

 

[Lycidas]

How do teachers in a nursery in BeiJing conduct sex education for children Aged 3 to 5? and How do teachers in a nursery in BeiJing teach sex education to children Aged 3 to 5? How do teachers in a nursery in BeiJing teach sex education for children Aged 3 to 5? which of the three sentences is better? Please help me! I was very confused

I strongly prefer "conduct" ("do"/"implement") to "teach" in your sentences; that is, I strongly prefer the first sentence, at least with the corrections emsr2d2 made to spelling.

It sounds extremely weird to speak of "teaching education." Adding "sex" as an attributive noun before "education" doesn't really make that problem go away.

You could, however, say: How do teachers in a nursery in Beijing teach children aged 3 to 5 about sex?

 

[emsr2d2]

In BrE, there's nothing unnatural about saying "teach(ing) sex education". The last two words are the name of the subject.

I would word the original sentence as follows:

How do Beijing nursery school staff teach/deliver sex education to 3- to 5-year-olds?

 

[probus]

In AmE as in BrE, there is nothing wrong with "teach sex education". Like "teach mathematics" and "teach history" it is correct, natural and commonly used.

 

[Tarheel]

I'm going to have to poll my usage consultants. Teach history, yes. History is the subject. Teach math, yes. Math is the subject. Sex education is not a subject. The subject is sex.

 

[Lycidas]

In AmE as in BrE, there is nothing wrong with "teach sex education". Like "teach mathematics" and "teach history" it is correct, natural and commonly used.

"Teach sex education" sounds like perfect nonsense to this native speaker of American English, except perhaps as elliptical for "teach sex-education classes."

That said, I don't have a problem with "teach sex ed." (with "education" abbreviated), which obviously is elliptical for "teach sex-education classes."

You can teach people. You can teach classes. You can even teach algebra and English. But you can't teach education.

 

[5jj]

You can teach people. You can teach classes. You can even teach algebra and English. But you can't teach education.

Nobody has said that you can. You can, however teach sex education. Just google it to find thousands of examples.

 

[Lycidas]

Nobody has said that you can. You can, however teach sex education. Just google it to find thousands of examples.

Googling won't tell me whether those who have typed it have done so appropriately or just because they couldn't think of how to phrase things better.

"Sex education" is education about or concerning sex. Would you say "teach education concerning sex"?

My objection aside, I'll admit we have something called P.E. in the United States. It stands for Physical Education. We have teachers of it. People even major in it.

Although I would speak of someone teaching P.E. rather than of someone teaching physical education, I can't deny that the latter formulation is acceptably used.

Since "teach sex education" works similarly to "teach physical education," and I accept the latter, I suppose I am forced to accept "teach sex education" too.

Therefore, I recant.

 

[Lycidas]

The issue would go away if we simply used capitalization, so that "sex education," etc., are read as proper nouns rather than as noun phrases with syntactic structure.

She teaches Sex Education.
She teaches Physical Education.
She teaches Special Education.

 

[5jj]

It is not an issue for many people.

 

[Rover_KE]

In BE, school subjects aren’t normally capitalised (except languages, of course).

 

[Lycidas]

It is not an issue for many people.

That holds true for a great many usage issues discussed in manuals, though, doesn't it?

Consider the absurdity of the following sentences, each of which treats the subject as a noun phrase with internal syntactic structure rather than as a proper noun:

She teaches hot sex education.
She teaches very special education.
She teaches partly physical education.