A FB friend posted this silliness regarding a portion of a bill that require schools in MN to provide sex education. I say silliness because KARE11 MN House Heats Up over Sex Ed does a much better job of explaining the issue.
And Common Sense Media gives the book in question, Its Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health, an excellent review. Please remember the people who want to keep kids stupid are the same ones who complain about too many unintended pregnancies and abortion. They apparently think they know better than the women themselves.
Now I agree that giving detailed sex education at age 5 is too early, but the speaker in the video made this up... It is not in the bill. The school districts get to pick the curriculum and timing.
Thoughts?
Ps. If most Parents were responsible and capable enough to this well at home, It may not be needed so badly in school, but the Kentucky article and the CDC data makes it clear that they ARE NOT.
"But House members spent at least two hours debating language that would require all school districts to offer comprehensive sex education. School boards would create their own curriculum or use a model curriculum that will written by the Minnesota Dept. of Education if the bill becomes law."And then of course one of the commenters commented that Planned Parenthood is EVIL... When it seems to me that the PP Sex Ed curriculum and its goals pretty excellent. And the then there is the fact that PP, the following book, and/or a required curriculum is NOT in the bill.
The bill requires the model to include medically accurate and age-appropriate information on the following:
- Human anatomy, reproduction, sexual development
- Consent, bodily autonomy, and healthy relationships, including relationships involving diverse sexual orientations and gender identities
- Abstinence and other methods for preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections
- The relationship between substance abuse and sexual behavior and health
And Common Sense Media gives the book in question, Its Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health, an excellent review. Please remember the people who want to keep kids stupid are the same ones who complain about too many unintended pregnancies and abortion. They apparently think they know better than the women themselves.
Now I agree that giving detailed sex education at age 5 is too early, but the speaker in the video made this up... It is not in the bill. The school districts get to pick the curriculum and timing.
Thoughts?
Ps. If most Parents were responsible and capable enough to this well at home, It may not be needed so badly in school, but the Kentucky article and the CDC data makes it clear that they ARE NOT.
6 comments:
A comment I left on FB in response to this...
"Really? You think 10 year olds need to read that? It’s even fuzzed out for the adults that might happen to see it on the web."
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On a lighter note. How do you think they should teach sex education without pictures? Something like this...
"Class... You have or will have body parts that we are not allowed to show you... The parts may do some interesting things of their own volition, however again... We can not show you or explain it to you.
Those parts along with the massive hormone swings, intense feelings / desires and lack of control due to your still developing frontal lobe may lead you to do some really stupid things during or soon after puberty.
I hope you have parent(s) who are responsible enough and not too shy to go into detailed explanations with you. Otherwise you may get some big surprises, end up pregnant, trapped in poverty and/or have the psychological scars of having experienced an abortion.
Now go out there and good luck !!!" :-)
I find it somewhat humorous only because we put kids through a lot more training before we let them drive a car... And surviving boys / girls / sexuality / puberty / etc is a lot more challenging than driving. :-)
We also as a society pay to install guard rails, put up signage, etc to keep young drivers safe. Where as people freak out at the idea of easily accessible free long term reversible contraception that could nearly eliminate unplanned pregnancies and abortions. :-(
The UU (Unitarian Universalist) church has very explicit sex ed curriculum for 9th graders and possibly younger students. It has lots of visuals of sex between people of different sexual orientations. My sons did not take part in it because by 9th grade they were already church dropouts or I would have had them participate. I believe the UUs claim that students who participate in their explicit sex ed curriculum have sex later than students who don't.
The sex ed my sons got was nearly all from school. At home the conversation did not go much beyond "are you using birth control?" when my younger son had a girlfriend when he was a senior.
Thankfully I think RDale's curriculum is pretty thorough.
My wife is really close to the girls.
And none of them had much interest in rebelling.
They stayed real busy with homework, school activities, netflix, texting, etc.
One nice thing about the modern electronic age where people spend little physical time with each other... No one gets pregnant or an STD via the internet. :-)
Here is disturbing link
Current Laws: The only requirements for sex education in Minnesota are:
STD/STI and HIV/AIDS education
Abstinence must be taught as the only 100% effective way to protect against unplanned pregnancy, STDs/STIs, and sexually transmitted HIV/AIDS.
A sex education course must be taught
The information must be technically correct
Things that are not required statewide:
Teaching about contraceptives
Parental permission to take sex education
Statewide curriculum
District-wide curriculum
School-wide curriculum
The information must be medically correct
The teacher must have sex education training
The state-level sex education requirements are problematic for various reasons. Because there isn’t a statewide, district-wide, or even school-wide curriculum for sex education in Minnesota, teachers are free to create their own curriculum,
meaning students attending the same school could be learning completely different things about sex and reproductive health depending on which teacher they have.
It’s important that we create a statewide, inclusive curriculum for comprehensive sex education in Minnesota.
Let's go back to my driver's education example...
Maybe the Religious Right folks think Driver's Ed would be adequate if they taught:
- You can die or kill someone if you drive a car.
- By not driving you will not die or kill someone.
That is what our State Law currently mandates regarding Sex Ed. :-(
One more thought occurred to me.
Driving is even safer because almost no other driver is motivated to get in an accident with a young unprepared driver.
Where as we know there are plenty of other sexually active people looking for a young naive lonely virgin to despoil.
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