‘A one-day stand’: exploring how Canadian guest educators’ sense-make time in sexual health education

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss how guest sexual health educators assess, value, and use of time in sexual health education. Drawing on a subset of findings from a larger sensory ethnographic study conducted in British Columbia, Canada, I explore guest educators’ sense-making of what is and can be included in K-12 sexual health education–and what must be cast aside–given the time and other constraints of public education. I contribute two fine-grained, embodied narratives that highlight how guest sexual health educators’ classroom practices are guided by a sense of impermanence and imminentness. Discussing key moments within the narratives when guest sex educators troubled, or were troubled by, time, I explore how these moments open up possibilities for rethinking rigid, time-driven teaching practices that often reflect judgements about the need for sexual health education to be controlled, consistent and palatable.