Sex Education

This topic hits more hot buttons than Evolution. I taught sex education to eighth grade students for five years. It was part of their health curriculum. The state of Washington requires the teaching of this topic. I think many parents are relieved because they are actually embarrassed to sit down and talk to their children about this topic.

I volunteered to take on health as part of the eighth grade science curriculum. The phys ed teachers had avoided the subject for years, short changing the students. I could see the need for the curriculum whenever I talked to students. I am not just referring to the high school pregnancy rate.

Students refused to shower after taking a P.E. class, leading to some smelly situations. The P. E. teachers had given up fighting this battle with the students. In conversation with different students, I arrived at the conclusion that most students weren’t too lazy to shower. They were apparently afraid that one of their classmates might be “gay” and would see them nude. Then the “gay” boy would obviously make a pass at them because a gay eighth grader has no self control around nude boys.

A number of the eighth grade girls had other problems. The high school campus was next to the middle school campus and high school boys were meeting middle school girls in secluded locations on the middle school campus. The girls were providing oral sex for the boys. We never did determine just how widespread the practice was, but when we caught two of them in the act, there were a number of upset parents spending some “quality time” with their suspended daughters. The girls thought oral sex was safe and they not only could not get pregnant, they also could not catch a STD (sexually transmitted disease) from the boys.

These were two of the immediate problem areas that needed work. The other, long term one was teen pregnancy.

Since I had the students for a full year of life science, I was able to develop a rapport with most of them before starting the health unit. I conditioned them to feel free to ask me any question on their minds and I always gave them straight answers. I got them used to words like penis and sperm so they got the giggles out of their systems. They felt comfortable with me.

I used a realistic approach with my students and only ever had one parent complain to me about teaching sex ed and told me he was standing up for all of the parents who were afraid to approach me. I felt sorry for his daughter and she was excused from the one day of “ask me anything about any sex topic, using the appropriate language.”

Eighth graders think they know all about sex. Their naiveté was interesting, to say the least. On ask any question day, the girls seemed to ask the most pointed questions. The mechanics of sex for procreation and effects of STD’s were part of the regular curriculum so the questions tended to be more about gays and how they could possibly have sex to why boys are so fascinated with girls’ breasts.

I never showed how to put a condom onto a banana but I did present a unit on birth control and abstinence. Many students previously thought condoms were 100% effective at preventing conception and STD’s. I pointed out how that train of thought could easily lead to problems later on. I always preferred to point out the consequences of sexual behaviors and focused my comments more toward the girls, since they could not walk away from an unwanted or accidental pregnancy. When I finished the unit, students understood that abstinence was the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and STD’s. But they also knew how to handle situations where abstinence is not an option.

Studies show that teaching abstinence alone is not only a waste of time, it is misleading and criminal. Anyone who says otherwise, needs to get a teaching job in a different field where they will do less harm.

I enjoyed teaching health as part of my science curriculum. I felt as if I was having an effect on my students beyond academics alone. Students responded to the curriculum in a positive way and many of them looked forward to seeing me when I would regularly visit the science teachers on the high school campus. They would go out of their way to visit with me.

The WASL testing fever hit the state of Washington and I had to change my curriculum to reflect the demands of the science portion of the test. I converted my curriculum to the earth sciences and gave up the health unit. It was to be taught by the P.E. teachers. For my last three years at the middle school, it wasn't taught as a separate course or unit by anybody. Supposedly it was integrated into P'E' as part of a "wellness curriculum".