Sex Ed in Ontario Gets a Slap in the Face!

Greetings,

I hope you are all well. Catchy title huh? I'm kind of kidding; but just a little.

If you live in Ontario (as I do), you may have heard that our provincial government had been planning on updating the physical health education curriculum for elementary schools until recently. The Toronto Star ran a story here. In case you don't feel like reading the story, the gist of the updates are:

What kids will learn

Grade 1 — Body parts, including genitalia using correct terminology

Grade 2 — Stages of human development

Grade 3 — Healthy relationships, differences and how they make humans unique (discussion could include sexual orientation, physical abilities, cultural values)

Grade 4 — Puberty and physical/social impact

Grade 5 — Reproductive system, menstruation, spermatogenesis, emotional stresses of puberty

Grade 6 — Emotional, social and physical changes of adolescence (discussion could include wet dreams, erections, vaginal lubrication, masturbation)

Grade 7 — Delaying sexual activity, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and STI prevention, (possible discussion of oral sex, intercourse, anal intercourse)

Grade 8 – Making decisions about sexual activity; sexual health/abstinence/safe sex; gender identity (male/female/transgendered/transsexual)

Apparently, these changes were published sometime in January of this year but only became news in the past week (or so). I'm not entirely sure what caused the public outcry, but the result of this public outcry has been our Premier's decision to 'rethink' the proposed changes and to leave the existing curriculum in place. Another result is that the changes have been removed from the government's website so we can't even look at them anymore.

Many people have commented on this. As you may have guessed, many of them espousing 'family values' and age-appropriate-ness (I know, that's not a word, but you know what I mean). One of the Star's columnists Rosie DiManno wrote an editorial on Friday which is what actually prompted me to write.

DiManno rails against the government daring to tell parents how to educate their young children about healthy relationships. She claims that six is far too young an age to introduce children to sex and that's why so many parents were taken aback. She claims the new curriculum was not value neutral, but an alternative moral code and that the government was simply teaching a different dogma (her word). She also claims that the curriculum "went well beyond instruction on body parts, prevention of disease and pregnancy and exploration of sexuality/orientation." Of course, we don't know that and we can't check now either. In summary, Rosie DiManno seems to have responded just like the 'Moral Majority', or the Canada Christian College. She writes editorials: she's supposed to have an opinion. I'm not knocking her for that. I am knocking her for sensationalism. She seems to have exaggerated a little to me, but I'm not going to split hairs.

I am going to suggest something else though. Studies continue to show that in developed nations with less public education about sex, there are higher rates of teen pregnancy.

However, that's not why I really wanted to write. There was something about the self-righteous tone in DiManno's article that set off alarm bells in my little head. It reminded me of something else I read in the Star (a year or two ago) that prompted me to blog: the new V-word. Remember that one? Va-jay-jay; because people aren't comfortable with the word vagina. Because it's a scary word. Like cancer or something. Or homosexual. You know, something you have to whisper in polite society. We can't possibly trust the educational system to teach these words to our children. We have to load them up with values first. We have to put them in context and make sure they understand why they're bad words.

I know that sarcasm doesn't translate well in print so I'm just going to write it out: those last few sentences after the word vagina were totally sarcastic.

My point is that to a child who doesn't know the difference between a penis and a vagina (which is a little hard to imagine at age six but I'm good at suspending my disbelief) a textbook definition of biological terms is hardly going to be value-laden. In grade three when they're being taught about relationships and what a heterosexual relationship is versus a homosexual relationship, again, a textbook definition is going to be a lot less value-laden than anything most parents would give them. I'm not suggesting that the government is infallible, or that the teachers are always going to have the best responses. Chances are, the kids are still going to learn the slang terms in the schoolyards (or on the internet), but when you're teaching something in the public school system, it becomes less scary and by the time those kids grow up, maybe they won't feel as threatened when someone wants to teach their kids about alternate lifestyles; like why their best friend has a mommy and a daddy living together at home.

Thanks for reading and drive safe peeps!