This old chestnut

I was catching up with my friend Joe the other day and he told me of a problem they had in their school last year. Parents had been very energized, with petitions, storming meetings, trying to involve media and state politicians, and taking a great deal of time and energy from administrators and teachers. The reason? The school was reviewing its sex education program.
At the time, the school included a fairly safe sex ed program in Middle School, probably created in the 70s, however recently its association and several important national parenting and child welfare groups had advised starting earlier. So the school formed a committee with parent representatives and drafted a program, but when the draft was circulated for discussion, disputes started which quickly became unpleasant and personal.

Ultimately the school adopted something between the old and the draft, those who had been so vocal on one side withdrew their children from those lessons, and those on the other promised to run their own program so that "knowledge" would be spread organically. In other words, no-one was happy.

This took me back to my own efforts in this area. To be more accurate, the elementary and pre-school principals made the effort. At the time, important US and UK agencies were advocating sex ed starting in Kindergarten, the effects of highly sexualized media were obvious with young children copying what they were seeing and hearing and we had the incident of the five year-old exhibiting sexual behavior and making sexual overtures to classmates.

The two principals set up a committee, with a teacher and a parent from each division, which reviewed policy and research papers from the UK and the US governments, possibly also Australian and Canadian, health and education departments, and national lobby and non-profit groups.

The committee developed a PK - 8 programme they called "Relationships" which included being good friends, caring, sharing, families (the school had a number of different family types including international and cross-race adoptions, and same-sex couples), effective groupwork, even leadership, democracy and the student council. Perhaps two or three percent of "Relationships" dealt with sex ed.

Then they circulated the draft program. And the fireworks started. Two families in particular were incensed, accusing the school of usurping the role of the family. Both were religiously motivated, at a school which tried hard to be non-religious in every aspect and which must have been acceptable to them since they came to the school and sent mutliple children. They wanted the entire programme abandoned based on their objections to a minor part of it. Incidentally, they had not read the details and were objecting to the concept of "sex ed".

One of the mothers approached every parent she could at drop off / pick up to lobby their support and when it was not forthcoming, quite aggressively told them how they were wrong. It became personal and unpleasant and I had to ask them to tone things down.

"Relationships" was ultimately introduced, one of the two families did not say another word, while the other withdrew their daughters from every "relationships" lesson. Not just from the sex ed component, but from the entire program.

One of the main drivers behind "relationships" was to control the quality and flow of information, to make it accurate, to reduce learning by rumor or gossip, and above all to maitain a climate of openness and trust where students could discuss such topics with family or with teachers. We tried to point out that their children would receive information anyway, especially from social media, which could not be vetted or contolled, but the mother was adamant. Several times a week, since "Relationships" was not a class, but interwoven throughout the curriculum, for 10 minutes here and there, her daughters sat in the library with other tasks. Even they wanted to be back in class.

One curiosity I would like to mention. Despite professing herself to be deeply, fundamentally, evangelically religious, the mother was famous for her tight and revealing clothing, short shorts and cleavage. Her PK and elementary daughters also liked to wear short shorts and crop tops when not in uniform, and from about age 8 or so, they began to wear make-up. I felt there was an inconsistency between how she presented herself as a female, and not wanting her daughters to learn about sex in a safe, trusting and controlled environment. I have often wondered how they turned out in high school and beyond.

Remind me to share the story of the parent who wanted his daughter to be a doctor while she wanted to study dance.

**Questions and comments below.**