Sex Ed

You have probably gathered that I am a teacher. I teach grade 2 in Ontario. Every so often, we get a new curriculum document and everyone goes crazy and people complain and then, we settle in to a new way of doing things, get comfortable and then a new government gets elected and we go through the process again. To be honest, I don't usually worry about it much, it always works itself out in the end.

Things are a bit different this week. The media, at least here in Ontario, is in a froth about the fact that we have a new health curriculum and one key aspect of the health curriculum is sex ed. I hadn't heard that there was anything new but CBC (for my American readers, think of NPR but that doesn't take itself quite so seriously and has more of a sense of humour) was doing a lot of discussion about it over the last few days, which keyed me in.

Before I get going with my opinion here, which will probably lose me the few blog readers I have, I have to say that most of my reactions are related to what I heard discussed on the radio as opposed to what I saw when I read the actual document. I have since gone to look at it myself and while I didn't read it carefully from end to end, in my skimming, I didn't find it anywhere near as objectionable as I expected to (and, as usual, the media is misrepresenting and/or giving the most extreme possible interpretations). If you want to see it for yourself, go to this link and you want to look at the C - Healthy Living section. There are two major sexual health expectations for each grade.

This morning, I heard an interview with a public health nurse and by the end of the interview, I was very uncomfortable and spent a lot of time brooding on it all day. There were several points in the interview that really were upsetting to me.

Let me preface this by saying that I find some issues really difficult to sort out my feelings on. I am a person who is very uncomfortable with anything that would be disrespectful to those around me and I try very hard to be as accepting of others as I can be without completely abandoning what I believe. I am a Christian and I honestly believe that Biblical teaching is the foundation for what I believe about moral choices. On the other hand, I struggle with how to be compassionate and non-judgemental of people who make choices that are different from my area of comfort. I am not a fanatical conservative who believes that everyone has to live exactly the same way but I do believe, deep down, that God wants human beings to be happy and when we do it our own way, often, that does not lead to happiness. I am a firm believer in monogamy and aside from faith aspects, from a physical and emotional health standpoint, frequent and brief sexual encounters has proven itself to not be a healthy way to live. I also have to say, as a teacher who has been in the field for 12 years, I am more convinced than ever that children need to grow up in stability and that divorce, promiscuity and transient family systems are not what is best for children. Before you shoot me, I am NOT saying that all children growing up in two parent households are in a better situation than everyone else or that a parent should stay in a highly toxic environment in the name of being a two parent family but ideally, a secure family led by two adults who can share the load is the environment in which I have seen kids thrive the most and, when the adults are legally linked, there is a comfort in knowing that just walking out the door is not something that will happen easily. On the flip side, children suffer most in situations of instability, when a parent is struggling or, even worse, when things change so often that the child cannot even establish what the family unit is.

Anyway, I am really rambling here so let me get to my point. The public health nurse was essentially putting forth the argument that, since children are going to hear about these things anyway, that we should just go ahead and teach EVERYTHING and at ages that are much younger than many parents would feel comfortable with. We are not just talking about basics, this curriculum gets into things like anal and oral sex, same sex practices and alternative relationship configurations, some of which are introduced as early as age 12. She dismissed any concerns that parents might have and repeatedly put forth that teachers would learn to use more "neutral language" such as refraining from using words like "husband and wife" since those would imply that parents should be married (which, ideally, is absolutely what I believe).

I found myself really, really, really upset by her tone. We can delude ourselves as much as we want but sex is not something that can be taught in total isolation from morality. We may not share the same ideas but sex is highly powerful and probably one of the most personal of belief-systems aside from (or connected to!) religion. You cannot teach the physical specifics without discussing the moral, emotional and health ramifications of sexual decisions - in doing so, you are essentially taking a stand that says that you can do whatever you want and that is O.K. As a parent, I am extremely uncomfortable with this approach. Every sexual act or sexual choice has a potentially long-term impact, not only on oneself but also on others (and in my opinion, it is only selfishness and a desire to avoid responsibility that leads someone to argue to the contrary). People can argue that it doesn't mean anything but that is just deluding oneself. How many people go around with long-term emotional problems because of a negative sexual encounter, a regret or, even worse, a disease because of one instance of poor judgement? And, given that the research clearly shows that adolescents, especially young ones, are not particularly capable of sound judgement due to hormonal and physiological changes, is just throwing this information at them without a paradigm for really processing it, doing them any favours? Yet again, I feel as if, as a society, we are just washing our hands of our children. We say, well, since they are going to encounter all of this stuff anyway or could find it out on the internet, we should just teach it to them and let them have at it. To me, that borders on child abuse. What a total abdication of our responsibility as parents.

One of the arguments was, "Well, they see these things in the media, so..." Again, I see that as total abdication of responsibility. No, I can't control everything that my child sees but there are many, many tools out there that enable parents to make wise choices in the media that children consume. My child will not be running around totally unsupervised and we as parents need to take the initiative to make wise choices about what our children watch. It's the same in terms of peer relationships. Can I control everything, of course not. I can, however, ensure that my daughter is in social situations that are sufficiently supervised and that the adults in charge are living up to their responsibilities. As she gets older, of course she will spread her wings and I won't be able to control that but I would hope, that by that time, she will have absorbed the important lessons on how to respect herself and live in keeping with her values so that she makes wise choices and knows what it feels like to make secure decisions.

I also have to say, as a Christian, I do get to the point that the idea of "tolerance" begins to get on my nerves. I don't think that our society is especially tolerant at all. We are "tolerant" of secularism and of people going with the status quo but we have become quite intolerant of people whose ideas don't match with the current thinking in terms of "equity" or of people whose opinions might make us feel judged (it's much easier to just accuse someone of being closed-minded or conservative than to objectively ponder whether there might be some truth in their beliefs, even if they are uncomfortable). I assure you, the students and parents in my work environment would all tell you that I go out of my way to affirm my students and not to convey judgement of their choices and I will fight for the rights of others to be respected but I do reserve the right to raise my daughter in the belief systems of our family.

I don't know what our approach will be to this in the long run. We have the choice to opt Pk out of sex ed and, depending on how it is presented, I might end up going that route, if I feel that what she is being taught goes against our morals. I don't mind someone teaching her the anatomical names of the body parts or what changes happen in puberty (frankly, having someone else deal with some of that stuff would be nice), I don't feel comfortable with her being exposed to sexual practices without a clear discussion of the possible impact of that on her long term mental and physical health. This part of parenting scares me silly.