Friday, 22 June 2012
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Too Young For Graphic Sex Ed?
In Washington state, an elementary school principal was teaching a 5th grade class the mandatory sex ed course. During the lesson, the principal also explained what anal and oral sex were.
Is 5th grade, (roughly) 10 years old, too young for this material to be explained without the parent's consent?Here is the local story.
What would you do if you were the parents? Would you feel upset? Or is this information critical to a child's development, and necessary even in elementary school?
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- From: sarahsmurfette@xanga
- About Me: Proud military wife. Mother of two.
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Comments (58)
Not too young. Might as well tell them before they start getting misinformation from somewhere or someone else.
If their did their jobs and taught their children about sex then schools wouldn't have to step in and do this, but since many people seem to think that sex is not an important thing to talk to their children about, then yes, they should teach it in schools.
Sex is a normal, natural part of life. In biology we learn about the way our body works, it only seems right to talk about sex from an educational standpoint.
To put it simply, I personally think this type of sex ed has no place in elementary school. 5th grade is elementary school. I think it was too much. Middle school is another subject, one might anticipate different behaviors at that point.
@Empathic_Heart@xanga - I absolutely agree with you. I definitely didn't want to know about anal sex when I was 10, and I'm definitely glad I wasn't force fed the info.
@sarahsmurfette@xanga - Agreed.
From the Author: The link has expired since I submitted it. Here is the new link, if you want the local story, with interviews with the parents etc. http://www.king5.com/home/Onalaska-parents-say-sex-ed-is-too-racy-for-5th-graders-158507255.html
One of the Fathers was quoted as saying, "It's basically the same as raping a kids mind and taking their innocence,”
Did he go too far in his statement, or can you see where he's coming from?
@Empathic_Heart@xanga - I would have liked to have kept my innocence from math. Do you think they should have just let me not learn it, because I didn't want to?
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Another thought on the subject is, this is the age when kids start going through puberty and there is nothing wrong with explaining WHY we all go through it. It doesn't make sense to only explain what changes will occur and not explain why they are happening.
Luckily, my school had very thorough sex-ed starting in 5th grade. If I had been in a class where they taught us about periods, puberty and the genitalia, but not about their functions, I would have been pretty confused.
@SeeBeeWrite@xanga - Anatomy and physiology are fine, but to know how some people put their penises in another person's anus? Don't you think that is another step entirely?
And there is nothing about math that could take away a child's innocence, it's not about just not wanting to learn something relevant that everyone must know when they are 10.
@sarahsmurfette@xanga - I think it should be covered all at once. Not necessary getting into the intricate details all at once, but the basics of it, yes. I didn't even understand that the penis went inside the vagina until I was in 9th grade, because it was sort of skipped over. I don't think briefly going over anal and oral sex is really graphic. They are both practiced just as commonly as vaginal sex, and there are a lot of misconceptions about them as well.
In an ideal world, parents would talk to their kids about sex so that schools don't have to deal with it.
@SeeBeeWrite@xanga - Math is a whole different thing all together. it effects a lot more around us, it effects everything around us.
Sure when kids go through puberty they should know what is going on but there is a line somewhere. You can know too much at a young age. It is sometimes hard to get it just right, i think this is the true problem with sex education, it is either too much or too little. I just don't think 5th grade is really nessicary 6th grade maybe. If they aren't going through puberty I don't see the importance. I was fine without knowing a lot of sex related things and i'm sure other people will do fine too. i knew about the puberty stuff, but nothing like what genitals look like and strong stuff like that.
I would honestly be a little upset if we were not given previous warning about this. I believe sex education is a good thing, but it needs to be kept age appropriate. However, if the child asked the question I think its a good thing that the teacher gave an honest and accurate answer.
@SeeBeeWrite@xanga - I agree, but I think we are in the minority. Honestly, this isn't about protecting or destroy children's innocence. I would rather my child be informed than misinformed. When I had similar sex education classes in school, it was always in terms of how to deal with someone abusing you. Also like you, my classes didn't gloss things over. They were thorough and informative without being graphic. It never enticed me to want to have sex, in fact it had the opposite effect because I understood the consequences (and no they weren't scare tactic consequences).
I can understand that parents object to it being taught without their consent. I just find it ironic that ALL of the girls whose parents didn't let them take the class that I took were pregnant before or shortly after high school. I am not saying this what happen to all people who would object to sex ed classes. Not every parent is responsible when it comes to educating their children about their bodies, sex, the consequences of sex, and what to do if you are being molested. These classes have their place and parents should be given a choice. Unfortunately, I think most of the time, and I don't mean anyone here, the parents that opt out aren't the ones that are concerned that their children aren't ready.
Not too young.
Many middle schoolers are getting pregnant, drunk, and high. They're about to enter that world and if they don't know certain things, it could end up very wrong.
Forced ignorance is stupid when it comes to any topic.
I much rather know that I am a part of the matrix being used as a battery than thinking other wise.
truth>ignorance at any point in time.
The only issue I see with education of this type is miss communication, mostly due to the taboo around the subject. When there is taboo or hush tones with any topic the translation is easily lost and many are confused until corrected and normally this correction happens the hard way.
@sarahsmurfette@xanga - I think the parents should have been sent a consent form allowing them to opt their child out of the explicit sex ed course, and have offered a simpler less in depth course for the children to take
I'd have this principal's job on a platter! Who does he think he is not only allwoing the teaching of sex ed to 10-year-olds, but even going so far as describing such unnatual bodily abuse as anal "sex"? Why aren't we letting kids be kids? Why are we all in a hurry to "make them 'grow up'" before they're ready? Teach them when the time is right, for Heaven's sake, and let them be kids!!!
I'm against sex ed all together.
I think sex is personal and should stay personal.
IF it had to be "taught" then I believe it should wait until the "children" are at LEAST 16.
I believe that (Especially NOW days) kids aren't stupid, they just choose not to take responsibility (the same as some adults do) Most ten and twelve year olds know more about sex this day and age than a lot of adults from a few generations ago... and part of it is from television, video games and songs... I don't think that a TEACHER has the right to talk to MY children about their bodies, their sexuality, or what sex "is"...
Just like religion, I think that sex is personal and should stay in the home.
And btw, one of the reasons parents are not teaching their children about sex anymore because the school is doing it younger and younger... many parents wait to have those conversations until they feel the child is old enough... the problem is that the SCHOOLS think that ten, eleven is old enough while most parents believe that it should probably be around 13/14 when the child is going through puberty. AND THAT IS FINE! But, a parent no longer needs to tell their kid about sex when the school is basically pushing the idea in elementary school. :P
Now, don't get me wrong... in HEALTH, I believe that sex should be mentioned and the dangers of sex warned of. But do I believe that public schools have the right to teach an entire class dedicated to sex to our children? No.
Think about it... if a random older gentleman walked up to an eleven year old girl and started telling her and her friends about sex...we'd call the police... we do we let it happen in school at such young ages?
So please... don't blame the parents. The parents have the right to tell their kids when they feel like the child is old enough... A SCHOOL doesn't have the right to tell the FAMILY that 10, 11 is old enough. :P
It wouldn't happen in my home state of Idaho. They are too young. I think Jr. hi and high school become more appropriate for those kinds of things, and here abstinence is the biggy, buy since we all know that works in like 3% of kids, condoms are discussed as well. I don't see a problem with that, since they all know about it, and it adds additional information that is useful. If we left all of this up to the parents, we'd have an even higher teen pregnancy rate.
Just an aside, my husband teaches 6th grade, and over the years, children have been caught in hiding places having sex. So, if parents haven't taught their children extremely specific things about sex before 6th grade, heaven help them.
"If parents taught their children about sex, schools wouldn't have to do it"
This statement in this context seems totally off!! I think the emphasis on AGE is not being respected here. I have three daughters 16, 14 and 11. The eleven year has an incling that things like this happen (in our modern society - it just keeps popping up) but she just doesn't really want to know more...WHY? Because she is NOT READY emotioally. My 16 and 14 year olds know it all. We talk openly and I am sure some homes don't do this, so MAYBE it should be discussed in school, but NOT in sex education where boys and girls are together. In our school there is a sex education project in the 8th grade. (I live in the inner city in Hamburg Germany) The gilrs and boys are separated and EVERYTHING is discussed. It makes me a little uncomfortable what all gets discussed, but kids are (mis-/under-)informed anyway - so it gives them an opportunity to talk about things among their peers. And yet, NOTHING beats talking to your own kid about sex - and I would not be talking about "variations of sex" without straight questions from my child before about 13. They're not ready!
I had sex ed at the same age. I'm so glad I did, because about 2 weeks after the class, I got my first period. I would have thought I was dying if I hadn't just been taught about it, and I would have been way too embarrassed to ask my mum.
Once my mum knew I'd started the classes, she sat me down and had a very candid chat with me about everything she could think of.
She armed me with a lot more information than I got in sex ed, and I feel like I know enough about sex now to get me by in life without making some incredibly bad and regrettable decisions.
It's important that sex ed classes AND parents teach kids about this stuff, not just one or the other. Kids seem to be learning more and more about sex from all sources - for example, when I was 8 years old, a classmate of the same age told me about masturbation. He called one of our teachers a 'wanker', and of course I had no idea what that was so I pressed for answers. He told me, but I still didn't really understand it.
I'm 18 years old in a few weeks, and I feel that over the past decade, my friends, teachers, and my mother (and subsequently the internet!) have all taught me some very valuable and important lessons about sex and sexuality.
there are kids already having sex and getting pregnant in our middle school (5th-8th grade), so i don't feel like it's unreasonable to teach them the consequences that come along with sex at that early of an age. as of right now, there's no talk of sex whatsoever in our school system, and our pregnancy rates are pretty high comparatively.
@sarahsmurfette@xanga - I somewhat agree. If 5th graders didn't know about this yet, why print that in their mind? That seems way too young to know about that stuff. Do you know if the school sent home permission slips for this lesson? If not they were totally in the wrong.
BTW, when I was in fifth grade we learned about periods and body changes. Not intercourse, oral, or anal sex. Wtf?!