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The Pitfalls of Sex EducationTONI COLLINSWe faced a lot of unforeseen issues when we decided that the best choice for our third child was public high school.Not
Like the "Good Old Days"
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A
history teacher made snide remarks about the Pope and his “buddy” Mussolini. Our
daughter was asked to take a drug-use survey so exquisitely detailed that, if
I’d let her take it, she very probably would have thought she was the only student
not “using.” Required community service work was disallowed because she performed
it at church. Still, is there any course in public high school more damaging to
a family’s values than sex education?
Fortunately, we knew enough to
opt our daughter out of the school’s sex-education course, and her teacher was
very supportive of our choice. But what was shocking to me was that she was the
only student opted out of the class. It made me realize that not nearly enough
parents know what is presented to students in sex-ed classes, and how sex education
can do more to destroy family values and relationships than any other aspect of
public school education.
Typically, sex-education courses are designed
by Planned Parenthood-style organizations. The goal of these groups is to reduce
teen births (not pregnancies), and their primary tools are contraception and abortion.
They truly believe that teens are going to be sexually active, and that it’s imperative
that teens know how to use birth control and how to obtain an abortion if the
birth control fails. They believe that leaving this information out of a sex-ed
course would be both dangerous and immoral. They’ll pay lip service to abstinence,
but their focus is always contraception.
Most parents with school-age
children were brought up with sex ed in their own schools, but it was a far different
curriculum than exists today. Back in the sixties and early seventies, sex ed
was taught in single-gender groups and covered feminine hygiene, physical development,
and venereal disease. It was pretty benign, and did nothing to prepare parents
for what their own children today would be fed in the name of sex education.
For example, Carol Everett, a former abortion clinic owner who now reveals
the secrets of the abortion industry, used to visit classrooms in her area of
Texas. Under the guise of sex education, she would secretly hold as her goal 3
to 5 abortions for girls between the ages of 13 and 18. She’d get the students
to laugh at their parents’ values, she’d break down their natural modesty by talking
about sex in mixed-gender groups, and would offer girls a low-dose birth control
pill with instructions no teen was capable of following. Pregnancies, and their
profitable abortions, were guaranteed. She’d earn $25 for every abortion in her
clinics, and would pocket over $10,000 a month. Speakers like Carol are the hardest
area of sex education for parents to monitor, because we can’t “view” their material
before they talk to our kids.
What about material that is made available
to parents? In my daughter’s high school health class, sex-ed material was unavailable
until the night before the instruction began. The notice came home; our permission
was requested and refused. If there were any parents who wanted to preview written
material, they had roughly a 6-hour window to do so. Such an arrangement makes
it virtually impossible for parents to find out what’s going on in their children’s
sex-education classes.
For me, this lack of opportunity was not a problem.
We knew we didn’t want our daughter exposed to today’s sex-education materials.
You see, in the mid-nineties, I spent a couple of years researching sex-ed curriculum,
and have reviewed more recent materials last year. Now that I actually have a
daughter in public high school, I’m convinced that most parents don’t understand
the graphic, destructive nature of sex-ed courses today. The following examples
will probably upset you, but remember that this information is presented to high-school
students every year. Please further be aware that I left out the most shocking
examples. What is presented here is among the more moderate material presented
to students. Training Children
to Be Immoral
Let’s start with the textbook Human Sexuality.
This book told students that if, as adults, they’re attracted to members of their
own sex, then they are homosexual. (By the way, the same statement appeared in
a 5th grade, Catholic-school sex-ed book without the reference to adulthood, a
much more insidious statement. So please don’t assume that these problems are
limited to the public schools.) Human Sexuality suggested guidelines high-school
students could use to determine if they are ready for sexual intercourse. Marriage
wasn’t mentioned; instead the text stated that if students are not worried about
pregnancy or sexually-transmitted diseases, then they may be ready for sexual
involvement. In other words, those kids who haven’t thought through the consequences
of sex were being told, “Go ahead.”
The F.L.A.S.H. (Family Life
and Sexual Health) curriculum developed by the Seattle-King County Department
of Public Health, misinformed 9th and 10th grade students that using a condom
was as effective as abstinence in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. It
defined “dancing” as a type of “sexual touch.” The goal of this book seemed to
be that we all engage in sexual activity, we just need to decide what kind. One
of the worst aspects of the curriculum was that it required students to engage
in several different classroom role plays, usually as unmarried couples involved
in sexual relationships. Not a single role play featured young people who remained
abstinent.
But as that curriculum progresses, so does the offensiveness
of its content. The 11th and 12th grade F.L.A.S.H. outlines various physical
and emotional dysfunctions, then has students name the dysfunctions and suggest
advice for the “couples.” The detail of the material is so explicit that it would
be inappropriate to post it in this venue. In fact, if this material were to be
presented in the workplace, allegations of sexual harassment would start flying.
Remember, this text is designed for juniors and seniors in high school. How many
of them will walk out of such a lesson with purity on their minds?
Further,
F.L.A.S.H. for 11th and 12th grade contained the most egregious statement
I’ve ever seen in a sex-ed text. It defined breastfeeding as sexual behavior between
mother and child. The subtle message is that if your mother breastfed you, you’ve
already been sexually active. The thought of that passage still makes my blood
boil.
My more recent toe-dip into sex-ed curricula showed that things
have only changed for the worse. A newer curriculum, Reducing the Risk: Building
Skills to Prevent Pregnancy, STD & HIV, suggests the following activity: Once
you and your partner agree to use [birth control], do something positive and fun.
Go to the store together. … Plan a special day when you can experiment. And
yet, promotional material for Reducing the Risk consistently claims that
the program is proven to delay the onset of initial intercourse. With instruction
like that, do you believe their claim? (Dig deep enough and you’ll find that the
“proof” consists of comparisons only against “standard sexuality education,” not
against abstinence programs.)
Even worse, our local school district decided
to recommend to our school board that the district use the Safer Choices
curriculum. The committee held firm that Safer Choices’ classroom condom
demonstration was critical to the program’s effectiveness, and that no opt-out
procedure should be made available to students. They did, however, allow Safer
Choices’ homework assignment of visiting a birth control clinic “[perhaps]
with their boyfriends or girlfriends” to be reduced to mere “extra credit.” Great,
now a trip to Planned Parenthood can boost your grade in sex-ed class.
The most disturbing trend of all in modern sex education is the influence of groups
such as GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network). According to Marjorie
King in the Spring, 2003, issue of City Journal, GLSEN is working with
the National Education Association to bring Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
(LGBT) themes to public school classrooms. Sexual activities now considered controversial,
painful and unsafe are already being taught to teens as young as 12 years old.
The belief that heterosexuality is normal has been labeled “Heterosexism” and
targeted to be systematically stamped out of our children’s psyches. And this,
too, is starting young. Orlean Koehle, a California substitute teacher, reports
knowledge of a third-grade girl asking, “Daddy, am I a lesbian? I like girls better
than boys.” The LGBT advocates are attending our kids’ classrooms, and we were
not even informed that they had been invited. So
What Are Parents To Do?
First of all, pray. The graces of
the Sacrament of Matrimony are important. If you have any hope of getting these
influences out of your kids’ classrooms, you are going to need help from above.
Second, educate yourself. A good, quick place to start is Abstinence
FASTFACTS from the Center For Reclaiming America. Find out about good, effective
abstinence programs, and learn their content. Some suggestions are Sex
Respect, Teen Aid, and
FACTS. All of these will send you
preview materials, and all are solid, abstinence-until-marriage programs.
Third, believe what is in your heart and learn to defend it. Deep down, we
all know that abstinence education will work better than condom education, and
there is solid research to support this. Unfortunately, proponents of condom-based
sex-ed programs are expert at repeating the false assertion that abstinence education
is unproven. Sex Respect’s website cites research showing that program’s effectiveness,
and the FASTFACTS above reference more. Learn the strengths of abstinence programs,
and be prepared to defend them.
Fourth, gather other parents as partners.
You’ll need a crowd if you have any hope of influencing your school board. Parents
need to be prepared to attend school board meetings, to speak during public comment,
and to write letters to both the school board and your local newspaper. (In fact,
one of the most successful strategies you can adopt is to get a local reporter
to understand your point of view before you ever take the issue to your school
board. The power of the press can make you or break you.)
Fifth, the
partners should all pull their kids out of sex-ed classes. There is no better
way to make your school board sit up and take notice than to have numbers on your
side. If 99% of all students take the existing classes, school boards won’t see
any need for change. Talk to youth ministers in your community and enlist them
in the effort to convince parents to opt their kids out of sex-ed classes. An
appropriate opt-out form can be found at www.ccv.org/images/StudentOptOutNotice.htm.
Make copies and distribute them to other families. More important than making
your point to the school board, you’ll be protecting kids from the kinds of destructive
curricula that are standard sex-education fare today.
Sixth, do not
try to remove the existing sex-education curriculum. Instead, show your school
board that there are a great number of parents who want abstinence education offered
as a choice in your district. Ask them to offer both comprehensive sex
education and abstinence-until-marriage sex education, just like they offer Spanish
and French, or Woodshop and Auto. They will tell you it’s too expensive; ask them
why they offer both Drawing and Painting. They will tell you the master schedule
is too hard to change; ask them to offer abstinence education in the first quarter
of the school year. They will tell you that the existing program is proven to
be effective; ask them to show you the research. Be gentle but persistent, and
get them to see that they have a responsibility to serve all students in
the district, those who are sexually active as well as those who would find comprehensive
sex ed offensive.
There are several reasons for this approach. First,
there truly are parents who want the school to teach their kids about condoms.
Some of these people vehemently believe that it would be immoral to teach abstinence-only
sex ed. Many of these are excellent fighters, and they will have the power of
Planned Parenthood and GLSEN on their side. They will accuse you of trying to
ram your morality down their kids’ throats, of trying to institute a fear and
shame-based curriculum, and of withholding critical health information from their
kids. Their rhetoric is good, and they will probably win.
But if you
instead request that your school district offer a choice, you’ll have co-opted
the other side’s language and many of their arguments will evaporate. You won’t
be forcing your morality down their kids’ throats, they’ll be forcing theirs
down yours. You won’t be making their kids feel fear and shame, you’ll be offering
alternatives for families who value abstinence. You won’t be withholding health
information from sexually active kids, you’ll be providing support for the healthiest
lifestyle young people can adopt.
Remember, prayer, hard work, and strong
partnerships can make a difference in your school district. It won’t be easy,
but it can be eternally important.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Toni Collins. "The Pitfalls of Sex Education." Catholic Exchange
(July, 2003). This article reprinted with permission from Catholic Exchange.
THE AUTHOR Toni Collins is a convert
to the Catholic faith, and has worked with Catholic youth in music ministry for
19 years. She and her husband, Rick, are the parents of four daughters. Copyright
© 2003 Catholic Exchange
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