Evangelical Christian Charles McVety raised the alarm to the Ontario government’s plans to revamp sex education curriculum in schools, but it’s not really fair to blame him entirely for the decision this week to shelve the changes.
The new curriculum called for teaching Grade 1 children the correct terms for private parts — penis and vagina. Grade 3 kids would have been inroduced to the concepts of gender identity and homosexuality, while Grade 6s and 7s would have learned about anal intercourse and vaginal lubrication. The education ministry posted the changes on its website in January, but it wasn’t until this week that any attention was paid.
Christian and Muslim groups threatened to pull their kids from school in a day of protest, but their threats alone would hardly have been enough to get the government to flip-flop. Truth is, most regular folks were uncomfortable with the idea, too. We’re squeamish with sex talk because we think it’s dirty. And we think it’s dirty because we learn most of it from hushed conversations on playgrounds instead of in classrooms.
Felicity Morgan, who objected to the changes, told TV news that she wanted to be the one to give her daughter information about sex. But will she tell her daughter about blow jobs? Will her daughter feel comfortable asking her what blow jobs are? Unlikely. She’ll learn about them, along with accompanying misinformation, from her friends.
I grew up in a progressive household. I was taught where babies come from when I was four, yet most of my early knowledge about female anatomy came in Grade 3 from a stack of Playboy and Penthouse magazines at my friend’s house. The magazines belonged to my friend’s mother, who was single. This didn’t seem unusual to me at the time, suggesting I could have benefitted from some instruction on sexual orientation.
I wondered what “gay” meant the following year when I heard it mentioned on the 1970s sitcom “King of Kensington.” I could tell it was something sexual from the way it was talked about on the show, so I knew I didn’t want to ask my parents about it. I didn’t want to risk embarassment by exposing my ignorance to my friends, either, and I eventually figured it out myself by listening to older kids tell gay jokes.
It’s not exactly the best way to learn. But that’s how it always goes. And if it went that way for me, what hope does Morgan’s daughter have of it being any different? Religious groups say they object to schools teaching their children about concepts thet don’t approve of. But scrapping the changes to sex education dooms another generation to dangerous ignorance.
Slightly More Upright 