In 1919, before schools really got in on the act, the Department of Labor released a report advocating that all students in the US receive some form of sex education. The authors observed that “the worries and doubts and brooding imposed on boys and girls of the adolescent period as a result of lack of simple knowledge is a cruelty on the part of any society that is able to furnish that instruction.” Now, however, what has become one of the most venerable and contentious institutions of adolescence may be no more if opponents of a recently signed Wisconsin bill have their way.
The Healthy Youth Act, signed yesterday by Gov. Doyle, requires that human growth and development courses taught in Wisconsin provide, among other things, accurate information about the uses, benefits and side effects of contraception. Sex ed classes will also have to be conducted in a way that will not create bias on the basis of sexual orientation, sexual activity, gender, race or religion. This is an important step in the right direction for Wisconsin schools; there is no excuse for allowing into the classroom curricula that promote a particular moral or political project by withholding information from students or deliberately teaching inaccuracies.
Several studies published in the Journal of Adolescent Health suggest that parents overwhelmingly support the teaching of at least some sex education in public schools. They’ve also found that a majority of parents support curricula that cover STI’s and contraception. Nevertheless, opponents of Healthy Youth said that if it is signed into law, they would lobby school districts to drop sex ed classes rather than comply.
In such a polarized environment, it is reasonable to think we would be better off if schools did get out of the sex education business, or at least avoided the controversial aspects. There are two parts to teaching human growth and development. First is the biological part. This encompasses both the nitty gritty of puberty — periods, pubic hair, pimples and the like — as well as the abstract scientific and mechanistic knowledge of human reproduction. Most parents agree children should learn these things in school, the same way they discover pistils and stamen or amphibians and reptiles.
Once schools move beyond the biology of puberty and begin to explore sex and sexuality as social acts with real world implications, they move into the second part of human growth and development teaching. This is where things get contentious, because the social and cultural meaning of sex, especially as it involves teenagers, varies wildly between different people. For those concerned about the shrinking influence of the traditional family, the myth of the out-of-control teen is an important symbol and rallying point. Others see heavy-handed moralizing sex ed curricula as threats to those advances in reproductive freedom so painstakingly eked out in the 1960s and 1970s.
In this context the teaching — or omission — of facts about birth control, STI’s and abstinence cannot help but acquire an ideological bent. If there are school districts in which the majority of parents believe so vehemently that the moral values they are trying to instill in their children will be upset by the mandates of Healthy Youth, it would be best if they dropped the subject altogether. Doctors, educators and policy experts may find some parents’ anxiety over the potential moral corruption from learning about female condoms and IUD’s as misplaced. In the end, parents, not experts, bare the majority of responsibility for the moral education of their children. It is better that schools remove themselves from this task than go about it in a way that promotes one viewpoint by teaching incomplete or inaccurate information.
This does not excuse schools from the responsibility of covering the first aspect of human growth and development: pubertal changes and the basic biology of reproduction. Kids need to know what a period is, what a tampon is and why they have to wear deodorant. They also need to learn where babies come from and the theory behind how they get here. Both of these can and should be taught in a non-ideological way to every child in Wisconsin, despite the intense consternation caused by Healthy Youth.
Geoff Jara-Almonte ([email protected]) is a third year graduate medical student.
