Sex Ed: What the kids have to say

There was a heated debate earlier this year on Premier Dalton McGuinty's proposed updates to the sex-education curriculum.

Changes were delayed when the right-wing mobilized, knocking on every backwater doorstep to allege that the school system would now be offering how-to sex instruction and promoting homosexuality starting in Grade 3. I wrote my rebuttal to this nonsense here.

In May, a study conducted by the Sex Education and Information Council of Canada showed that teen pregnancy had plummeted in Canada, attributing the change to better access to birth control and sex education.

But none of us had really talked to the teens themselves until Toronto Life's The Informer prepared "Teenage Sex and the City."

One of the quotes spoke quite loudly to me in favour of an early start with sex education:

 

"Sex education classes were fun, especially the movies, but I lost my virginity in Grade 7, before teachers started preparing us for the real deal." - Jessica 15, lost it at 12

No one thinks their child is going to have sex before they've even completed puberty. But some do. And even though it's not popular with all voters, the right thing to do is make sure kids are informed sooner rather than later about preventing STIs and unwanted pregnancy.

Comments

[Sarah]

Having read the comments on TorontoLife, I'd love to say I'm shocked, but really, I'm not. Older teachers don't want to do more than the scientific facts, which are boring, and stress the 'don't do it' message. Newer teachers, especially teachers in the two year probationary period, are really unwilling to go outside of the absolute basics, since one parent complaint can torch a career, and you just know one parent is going to scream blue murder.

As a student teacher, I had a parent complain all the way to the board (through my supervior, department head, assistant principal, principal and superintendant) about A Midsummer Night's Dream, since the characters are out in the forest overnight without supervision, and it was 'immoral' and could 'give the children inapropriate ideas'. Please note this was a Grade 12 (17yr olds) English class. There's a culture of fear for teachers, and the province pulling the curriculum had made it worse. We have no faith that the boards or the province will back us, and so we keep our mouths shut, and watch our students make choices often without complete information.

My favourite complaint is 'but they should be learning it at home'. I agree they should, but the same parents who are yelling this the loudest are the ones who aren't GIVING their kids any information. They're the ones saying 'wait until marriage' and that's pretty much it. Guess what, biologically, 14-22 is when hormones are screaming "HAVE KIDS NOW" and that means sex. It's time to just give the kids clear, blunt, realistic information and send them out into the world with the ability to make informed choices.