Okay, first off, I'm in a metropolitan city, not a rural school.  It was my Korean boyfriend and my Korean co-teacher/close friend who first suggested teaching this topic to me.

Obviously I want to keep it age appropriate, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching teenagers that they should respect other people's bodies.  My boyfriend told me that, while serving in the Korean military, he'd hear people bragging about getting girls drunk and raping them.  I'd hope that if kids are brought into a conversation about not being entitled to others' bodies early enough, there's more accountability that that kind of scenario is a crime and can't be brushed under the rug.  I think it's important to talk to kids about how your body is your body and you deserve control over it to students--that concept seems very important and not at all shocking.

My co-teachers have been awesome, and have loved it when I've taught about racism, anti-smoking, etc.  I'm not going to go into explicit details about sex obviously; I wasn't even going to use the word.

Korea isn't as conservative as a lot of western countries seem to think it is.  My boyfriend told me that his health teacher in middle school talked about his former exploits with prostitutes and warned the kids to stay away from unprotected sex.

Maybe my school is just different than other schools, but I think teaching kids that they should respect the personal space of others isn't a huge shocker.  I've been here almost 2 years and have had absolutely zero complaints.  My co-teachers have praised me for talking about real issues with my students.

While I agree that this is not a subject I would touch with a ten foot pole... I think if OP is going to do it anyway, here's a suggestion:

Come up with some innocent role plays and stick with basic dialog like "No, don't touch me." "Stop. I don't like that." "Please call me a taxi." "I want to go home."

For example, two boys are horsing around, hitting each other, joking around. One boy hits too hard, and the other says "Stop. I don't like that." Then stress that the other person MUST STOP IMMEDIATELY.

Example 2, two girls are traveling abroad. One gets tired and says "I want to go home" while the other one asks a passerby to "Please call a taxi." Innocent, and good for many situations.


I think it is appropriate in our position as GET's to teach proper behavior, and even in elementary something as mentioned above is important for students to learn. Teach about safety, teach about proper behavior. Basically, teach them to respect the desires and opinions of others without bringing up sex, etc. If you teach with a coteacher, perhaps he or she could take it that step further and mention how the language learned can help protect one from weirdos and creeps too.

And perhaps even more importantly than the language used, watch how your students interact with each other on a daily basis. If you see that students aren't respecting their friends, step up and say something then. Tell your co-teachers and students why it is important that they STOP.  Perhaps then OP can subtly make a difference in the lives of her(?) students.