Connecting to Your Work: The Moment I Knew I Wanted to Work with Youth
“I started to critically question why stigma and shame are all too often attached to sexuality and reproductive health. Why is it that sexual behaviors, sexual health, and sexual education are taboo?”
RYANN MARTINEK, MPH | BY-LA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
The draw of teaching comprehensive sex education has long been on my radar. I’m a firm believer that all people deserve sexual health education that provides inclusive, holistic information and is taught using a person-centered approach in which learning is multi-directional and engaging, leaving learners empowered with knowledge.
Having originally come from a human rights framework academically, I found myself gravitating more and more toward issues related to sexual and reproductive health. I started to critically question why stigma and shame are all too often attached to sexuality and reproductive health. Why is it that sexual behaviors, sexual health, and sexual education are taboo? Additionally, I began to see that when concerns are taboo, policies and legislation often further de-prioritize issues and overregulate accessibility and choice. Over time, I realized that the injustices related to sexual and reproductive health activate and inspire me to be a part of this work and the intersectionalities inherent within it.
My time has arrived to step into the classrooms of New Orleans and beyond and I find that reflecting on the journey that has led me to my current position as a sexual health educator has been pivotal to prepare for the school year and do my best to fully show up for my students. Prior to joining IWES, I worked, volunteered, and interned with a number of different public health organizations domestically and internationally. These roles provided me with experience in outreach and advocacy, research and evaluation, and policy-level change. While the opportunity to gain tangible skills and experience has been important, above everything, the individual and community level connections have been the most meaningful and profound aspects of working in public health.
During my thesis work, I had the opportunity to facilitate several focus groups with adolescents; I was blown away by the creative ingenuity and nuanced suggestions that our participants voiced. They were so in tune with themselves, their peers, and the world around them. A lot of our discussions focused on stigma and judgment in relation to sexual and reproductive health and how tools like a mobile app could help normalize accessing information and care. Furthermore, the adolescent focus groups often got specific about the necessity of education and services being available to all genders and shared insightful suggestions for inclusive branding and marketing. It was incredible to hear young people speak candidly about their needs and hopes related to their own sexual health as well as their ideas about how to push society past stigma and shame. Not only did it affirm the sentiment of “nothing about them without them,” but it also solidified my personal interest in working with youth.
The more I dove into public health as a career and continued to work in adolescent health, the more I came to find that the adolescent age group is often overlooked and undervalued. As a society, we tend to pay attention and devote resources to the little ones and older folks while pinning teenagers as “troublemakers, difficult, rebellious, careless, disrespectful, etc.” By undermining the light, intelligence, and uniqueness of young people, we dismiss their developmental growth and can contribute to existing or potential trauma. I can remember some of the woes of my own journey through adolescence. During that time, having caring adults in my life, especially teachers, was imperative to my development and self-esteem. As I transition from a more research-centered background into a teaching role, nostalgia plays a helpful role in my classroom readiness. While we may never know the entirety of the influence we have on others, I am committed to creating classrooms that center student voice, honor their experiences and can leave students feeling heard, supported, and informed for whatever is next for them.
I’ll take a moment here to pause and remind y’all that I’ve just started teaching and give myself a reality check. While I have goals and ambitions as a teacher, I will encounter challenges, mess up, not know all the answers, and probably have some outright fails. It’s definitely scary and nerve-wracking, but I’m glad I’ll be kept on my toes and I look forward to laughing at myself here and there. I know that flexibility and humility will be crucial to stay in tune with students and the uniqueness of different classrooms and schools.
Thinking back to my graduate program, which focused heavily on peer-facilitated classrooms, I greatly look forward to teaching again and helping with “knowledge translation” around potentially complex concepts. In public health, “knowledge translation” is typically defined as the notion of breaking down research into digestible information for community organizations or community members to use. To me, teaching is all about knowledge translation and ensuring that students can walk away fully grasping the information in a way that enables them to share the core concepts with someone else.
As I’ve begun implementing and move forward into these first few weeks of fall, I’ve been resonating with some key takeaways...
Embracing and welcoming the wisdom of my fellow educators and the IWES family
Learning from co-workers through conversations, classroom observations, and teach-back sessions has been greatly illuminating in preparing to teach.
Continually being open to feedback and staying on my growing edge as an educator
For me, this means being receptive to the feedback from my peers as well as ensuring that students have ample opportunities to share their thoughts; after all, their learning is at the heart of our programming at the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies.
Maintaining honesty and showing humility
When you don’t know something ask questions and show interest! For example, I fully expect the kids to school me on pop culture references and I simultaneously look forward to learning more and expanding my playlists, watch lists, and internet wormholes.
Lastly, a big one that comes up for me is doing a bit of teleporting back to my own adolescence - remembering the ups and downs, all the feels, discovering my passions and voice
Fortunately, I was an avid journaler and photographer in those days and can do some direct tunneling back. I believe it’s definitely a helpful way to be present with young people and build empathy.
“By undermining the light, intelligence, and uniqueness of young people, we dismiss their developmental growth and can contribute to existing or potential trauma.”