The school nurse made a special visit to my school today to teach “Family Life Education” to students in Grades 5 through 7. My Grade 5′s filed into the class with great curiosity, a curiosity that I also felt, but for rather different reasons… While they wondered about changing from children to adults, I wondered how heterosexist the curriculum would be. I obtained special permission from the Vice Principal to join the class, who told me that one of the parents in my class had contacted her with concerns about whether sexual orientation would be discussed in the session. She responded that it rarely comes up with Grade 5s, who tend to be more interested in physical changes during puberty. But actually it did come up, most explicitly when the DVD shown to the students proclaimed that “Girls may get boyfriends and this is a normal part of growing up.” They did a really great job of letting the 10% of the student population who are queer know they aren’t normal. Would it really have been that difficult or controversial to say that teens may start to feel sexually attracted to other people and this is a normal part of growing up?
The other problematic part was that boys and girls were given completely different sessions. Girls were educated about ‘girl changes,’ especially menstruation. I don’t know what ‘boy changes’ were emphasized in the other session, as I wasn’t allowed to join that group. Separating boys and girls overemphasizes the differences between genders. There are many changes that both boys and girls go through during puberty. As for those topics that only apply to part of the gender spectrum, what is the harm in educating everyone? Boys should know about menstruation. Girls should know about erections and wet dreams. What is the benefit of being kept in the dark? This only serves to promote misinformation as kids educate each other or try to make sense of what they find on the Internet.
This brings me to the biggest problem. In this school district, Family Life Education in elementary schools is allotted about 60 minutes of class time in the whole year. These kids are not learning about their bodies. We spend hours every day teaching them about their world, why should their bodies remain a mystery? Why is it okay that my Grade 4s and 5s learned about the digestive and circulatory systems, but not about their reproductive systems? I know many people who were sexually active by Grade 8. Kids need to know how to make informed decisions about their bodies. Comprehensive sexual health education is the right of every student, regardless of their parents hang-ups about sex.
