Say Anything Blog

I had a similar sex ed class in fifth grade and I don’t think I was any worse off because of it.  In fact, sometimes it doesn’t seem like a bad idea.  I’ll never forget this one day in fourth grade.  I was walking down the hall when all of a sudden this girl comes screaming out of the bathroom with her pants around her ankles screaming “Oh my God!  I’m dying!  There’s blood everywhere!” Poor thing had just gotten her period and was pretty confused and traumatized by it.

Sorry if I ruined anyone’s lunch.  But anyway, Richard is definately right that parents can opt to have their child out of the class (atleast that’s how it is in many schools).  So, IMO, we should keep sex ed around and leave it up to the parents.

It is my understnading that all sex ed classes can be opted out of if the parents so desire.

That would be a reasonable option. However, I really don’t see it happening. Public schools have a habit of forcing all its students to perform the exact same work. I remember my dismay when my 9th grade biology teacher told me I had to perform a dissection on a cat, and that no students could opt out. (I refused to participate, got a zero for the assignment, a C for the course,but went to bed happy that night. )

Well Dave, it’s a good thing you’re not me then.  I’ve had to disect about 10 cats.  It’s not really the guts that are too bad, it’s the smell… especially when we re-use cats from previous disections.  And don’t get me started on cow organs.

Rob although I totally agree with you that this is the parents place, I have to point out that there are a crap load out there that “turn red” at just the thought of discusssing this with their children. I have to wonder if would be even more embarassed to find out that she was informed of the sex ed content and just wasn’t concerned enough about it until it embarassed her. It is my understnading that all sex ed classes can be opted out of if the parents so desire.

Live demo would have been interesting. 

Something is wrong with our society when life lessons have to be teach in school assembly.  10 years old is a bit youngs for these type of lessons, and why would boys have to know how tampon work - not as if the boy would ever be called on to help a girl use one.  If a girl parents did not told her about basic woman biology and hygiene that her problem.  It would been interest to see when she walk into class durring her time of the month.  If the parents feel strongly about it, get the board and administrators fire.

...especially when we re-use cats from previous disections.

God that’s disgusting!

However, my objections were based on ethical, not aesthetic, grounds.

Isn’t that one of the programs left over from the Jocelyn Elders era? I know she had some real doozies!…

Schools are more interest in indoctrination and social programs then in basic education.  That’s why a student can be in the 12th grade and not know how to read (see Stossel article - Learning to read in South Carolina)

and why would boys have to know how tampon work - not as if the boy would ever be called on to help a girl use one.

I can’t speak for this particular school, but in my fifth grade sex ed class the boys and girls were divided for certain lessons.  Girls learned about female issues, and visa versa.

If a girl parents did not told her about basic woman biology and hygiene that her problem.

Yes, it is her problem, but it’s not her fault either.  Many parents may not feel comfortable discussing certain issues or are simply ill-informed.  I agree that it is the parent’s, not the school’s, responsibility to teach their kids these sorts of things.  But in the absence of proper parenting, children should have the option of taking a sex ed course.

Call me crazy, but I just don’t think we should be showing ten-year-olds models of genitalia.

You’re never too young to start learning basic human anatomy.  And I’m dead serious when I say that.

That is sad. Other country’s are educating their children with math and science and we are offering this??? No wonder the drop out rate is so high!

However, my objections were based on ethical, not aesthetic, grounds.

Atleast you’ve been consistent in your views.  But would you still object if the cats weren’t euthanized, but rather died of natural causes?

I have already posted enough on this subject, but will read the link by Stossel on education in South Carolina to see if he knows what he is talking about.  This is totally uncalled for.  Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, proper behavior in social setting (classroom--Kindergarten).

But would you still object if the cats weren’t euthanized, but rather died of natural causes?

No, but unfortunately about 99.999999% of dissected animals weren’t euthanized.

Really, with advances in technology you can use computer programs to simulate dissections to a very high degree of realism. That we still insist on actual dissections (in high school, at least. You could make a good case that college students should do actual dissections) is absurd.

The point you all are missing is that the public schools do these sex-ed programs without informing the parents.  When the ‘state’ forces something on the people without their consent or knowledge, I think that’s called tyranny.

That is true. They should allow parents to approve or not!...Why don’t they?

Really, with advances in technology you can use computer programs to simulate dissections to a very high degree of realism. That we still insist on actual dissections (in high school, at least. You could make a good case that college students should do actual dissections) is absurd.

Very true for high school classes.  The whole point is just to reinforce diagrams anyway.  The college level definately needs actual dissections though.  Computer models are usually too uniform, clear, and consistent.  It’s important to be able to recognize and navigate through even the worst specimens.  Not to mention the feel of it.

Another moral question for you: Do you have an objection to cats being being used in dissections to train future doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who will end up saving lives, which will potentially decrease suffering?

They should allow parents to approve or not!…Why don’t they?
Zsa, we are once again faced with the ‘common good’ scenerio.  The school officials with their assumed superiority know what’s best for the children as a class.  Remember, individuals are not important in modern liberalism causes.

Public schools don’t do this sort of class without permission slips. If they didn’t do it in this case, that would be bad form, but the likelihood is that the parents just signed the slip and now are “outraged” over what they already agreed to. Yes, in an ideal world kids would learn about these things from their parents. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and its simply a matter of public health for the schools to teach the kids about these things, or would you rather a bunch of kids with no clue about what their bodies can do roaming the country?

Doc… That is strange that schools would assume such superiority over parents authority! If a parent stated to the school prior to the sex ed. class they Did Not want their child taking part? Would the child be graded down like Dave when he was supposed to disect?

10 is not too young to tell girls about their periods, many start that young. The onset of a girl’s period is more a function of body weight than age. A girl having her period in school without proper knowledge about what to do is a sanitary issue, and an issue for keeping order. The sad truth is many parents can’t or don’t give their daughters proper information, or don’t early enough.

You need to separate the health issue from the sex issue. And there’s no reason that boys need to be in on that particular period of instruction...no pun intended.

Zsa, Oliver, not having any children in public school any more, I don’t have first hand info about their progams.  Perhaps, like you I know only what I read and there have been a lot of articles about parents allegedly finding out about some program after the fact.  For instance, there was an outcry from some parents when some school in California (why is it always California) decided to make their students be make-believe Muslims including I suppose lesson from the Koran.  There was another case where a school bused their children to an anti-war rally.  You can’t tell be that there weren’t some parents protesting that. 

Were there permission slips?  If there were I don’t know if there were penalties for those that refused to permit the children to participate.  At a minimum, I feel confident that the school would use peer pressure to assure complete attendance.

Oliver:

Public schools don’t do this sort of class without permission slips. If they didn’t do it in this case, that would be bad form, but the likelihood is that the parents just signed the slip and now are “outraged” over what they already agreed to.

Good point there.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

It’s been awhile since i was in school, but i’d sure hate to be the one kid in my class that had to leave the room for “health” class.

Not that i’d opt out my own kid either—this story is nothing (anyone remember fistgate?)—but his classmates would make him suffer for the indignity of it all.

Sorry, make that:

Not that i’d wouldn’t opt out my own kid either— i probably would.  I’ll take responsibility for that education.

Do you have an objection to cats being being used in dissections to train future doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who will end up saving lives, which will potentially decrease suffering?

Yes, as it puts the interests of humans above the interests of cats.

(I should point out that I’m not completely 100% against all animal testing. If the tests have a high likelihood of reducing suffering it’s worth it to kill other beings. A good method would be to consider whether we would be willing to do those tests on humans. If we would, we should do the tests.)

How could I best explain what I mean by that… I interpret that question the exact same way you’d interpret this one:

“Do you have an objection to black people being euthanized and used in dissections to train future doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who will end up saving lives, which will potentially decrease suffering?”

You would say no, because you’d be putting the interests of whites above the interests of blacks. I’d say no for the exact same reason. The only difference is that I extend that belief to members of other species, while you extend it only to members of other races.

“The only difference is that I extend that belief to members of other species...”

Going ‘down’ the evolutionary scale, at what level of species does your concern stop?

Yes, as it puts the interests of humans above the interests of cats.

What a radical concept.

To clarify....that would be somewhere around the oyster.

Going ‘down’ the evolutionary scale, at what level of species does your concern stop?

WOW that is shocking...(teaching about the human anatomy).....it would be even more shocking if they were teaching the kids what members of the church were “doing to 10-12 year olds” all across the country on a daily basis! the real shock would come when they explained how afterwards the “clergymen” are then transferred to another parish to begin their SPORT all over again. so i agree that this should not be taught at that young age and besides isnt it better when kids are allowed to believe that babies come from “heaven” and if one is a “good girl” maybe she too can even have a VIRGIN BIRTH. but only after the “angel of the lord” appears to the parents in a dream explaining how their future grandchild is not from any of that dirty sex stuff!

It would be better if our teachers would take that time to teach the students math, science, english, or at the very least how to read!… Why is it necessary for the kids to be given the “human anatomy” lesson at that age together?  I don’t mind children learning about the body or how it works. I only object to supplying condems in public schools and having 5th grade boys and girls in the same classroom while demonstrating how to apply a tampon! Why would a 5th grade boy need to know that?
After the Monica Lewinsky oral sex-capade… I recall there was a large number of cases of oral STD’s in Elementary and Junior high school children. Children believe that oral sex is not having sex so perhaps we do need Sex Education? Perhaps we could approach it in a different way so that our under age children are told of the emotional and personal nature of sex. Explaining how and what our bodies are doing is quite another thing, than demonstrating how the male and female has sex! Humans figured that out long ago without demonstration from adults…

It extends to all species capable of enjoying life and/or experiencing pain. To clarify….that would be somewhere around the oyster.

What are the rest of us po’ folks to do--list species for you so you can give us a yes/no for them?  More importantly, whose definitions of ‘enjoy life’ and ‘feel pain’ are you using?

Regards…

hugh, read my Predatory Sex blog which states that most of the clergyman were homosexuals doing it to boys. Teachers are also sexually abusing students, both male and females on a regular basis.

Speaking for one that lives on the Jersey shore. The lobsters pain is my extreme pleasure.

LTM: This section from Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation may clue you in to how I feel about it, as I substantially agree with him (and he almost single-handedly started the animal liberation movement, so I imagine his ethics are followed by most veg*ns):

When we go beyond fish to other forms of marine life commonly eaten by humans, we can no longer be quite so confident about the existence of a capacity for pain.  Crustacea - lobster, crabs, prawns, shrimps - have nervous systems very different from our own.  Nevertheless, Dr. John Baker, a zoologist at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society, has stated that their sensory organs are highly developed, their nervous systems complex, their nerve cells very similar to our own, and their responses to certain stimuli immediate and vigorous.  Dr. Baker therefore believes that lobster, for example, can feel pain.  He is also clear that the standard method of killing lobster - dropping them into boiling water - can cause pain for as long as two minutes.  He experimented with other methods sometimes said to be more humane, such as placing them in cold water and heating slowly, or leaving them in fresh water until they cease to move, but found that both of these led to more prolonged struggling and, apparently, suffering.  If crustacea can suffer, there must be a great deal of suffering involved, not only in the method by which they are killed, but also in the ways in which they are transported and kept alive at markets.  To keep them fresh they are frequently simply packed, alive, on top of each other.  So even if there is some room for doubt about the capacity of these animals to feel pain, the fact that they may be suffering a great deal, combined with the absence of any need to eat them on out part, makes the verdict plain: they should receive the benefit of the doubt.

Oysters, clams, mussels, scallops, and the like are mollusks, and mollusks are in general very simple organisms.  (There is an exception: the octopus is a mollusk, but far more developed, and presumably more sentient, than its distant mollusk relatives.) With creatures like oysters, doubts about a capacity for pain are considerable; and in the first edition of this book I suggested that somewhere between shrimp and an oyster seems as good a place to draw the line as any.  Accordingly, I continued occasionally to eat oysters, scallops, and mussels for some time after I became in every other respect, a vegetarian.  But while one cannot with any confidence say that these creatures do feel pain, so one can equally have little confidence in saying that they do not feel pain.  Moreover, if they do feel pain, a meal of oysters or mussels would inflict pain on a considerable number of creatures.  Since it is so easy to avoid eating them, I now think it better to do so.

I’m not positive if, say, oysters can fell pain, but since there is a possibility that they do, I choose not to inflict any, out of a fear of “inadvertantly jeopardizing a species,” as you put it. However, I’m not so positive of it that I believe it’s an ethical view we all should follow. If you do eat oysters, because you believe the evidence showing they don’t suffer is sufficient, that is fine. It’s just not a risk I’m willing to take.

Plus, as Singer says, how tough is it to avoid eating oysters? I live in North Dakota! I don’t think I’ve ever even seen an oyster before!

Yeah happier than a bug in shit eh LTM

Dave,

What I find fascinating is your posit that, “It extends to all species capable of enjoying life and/or experiencing pain.” Wouldn’t all species, by some defintion, fall into one or both of those categories?  Who are we to say that a dung beetle doesn’t ‘enjoy life’?

Regards…

richard,

Bingo.

Regards…

The lobsters pain is my extreme pleasure.

And the slave’s pain was his master’s pleasure. And just as he didn’t consider the interests of blacks, you don’t consider the interests of lobsters.

Now Dave that is just pure assumption on your part. I can not speak for the considerations of any slve owners as my family migrated here during WWII however I did consider the lobsters feelings my hunger was just stronger than his will to live.

The article that started this thread was about a puberty education seminar in my town on Long Island. My child attended.
There were notices sent ahead of time and an informational meeting for the parents to meet the instructor. He answered any questions and explained everything that he was going to cover.

There were permission slips and it was an optional seminar.

The seminar was very clinical and scientific in it’s presentation.  5th grade is an appropriate age to begin educating on puberty and many parents can not do so as well as they would like. This gives a great option. I read about the 4th grade girl who thought she was dying in school when she got her period. It is for children like that that this type of program is very useful.

Bottom line is the program this thread is about was optional and everything was explained ahead of time. It was a whole lotta hoopla over nothing.  And the subsequent survey of the parents showed that many more approved than did not approve.
This story is also discussed at http://www.suffolkpolitics.com in the Smithtown issues section.

"I was walking down the hall when all of a sudden this girl comes screaming out of the bathroom with her pants around her ankles screaming “Oh my God! I’m dying! There’s blood everywhere!” Poor thing had just gotten her period and was pretty confused and traumatized by it.”

This is exactly why children SHOULD be taught about these things early. There should be no such thing as discresion from the truth. If kids grow up without knowing things they will need to know in the future, they will have problems later in life. Hell, I started to learn sex ed when I was ten, and look at me now! *chuckles* Take my word for it that I’m not too messed up.

The problem is this new generation of parents, if I may speak bluntly. They’re too careful, and yes there is definately such a thing. Everyone wants to shield and protect the children of today, but that won’t help them. That keeps them ignorant and naive. When I learned about people dying, I was young, and I learned to deal with it there and then. When I learned the physics of sexual intercourse, and of the sexual systems of the human body, I learned it with the discresion needed at the time. But it seems that someone is complaining everywhere I look.

“They’re still children.  Let them stay that way.  If they’ve got questions, they can ask their parents.”

Children grow up, and we want to make sure they grow up properly. Grow up to be informed. Children don’t always ask their parents. And not all the children in schools have good parents, parents who wouldn’t tell them these things. These programs were put in the schools because parents WEREN’T teaching kids properly. Stop trying to turn the clock of progression, is how I look at it, because we’re just going to mess up the future generations.

Stop trying to turn the clock of progression, is how I look at it, because we’re just going to mess up the future generations

Only liberals can view regression as progression.  Less than 4 generations ago, the schools didn’t have to assume the role of parenting because parents did not relinquish what was rightfully their responsibility.  I was a youth in that era and there was no teacher that dedicated valuable school time instructing girls how to use tampaxs and boys how to use condoms and I cannot remember any girl suffering through her first experiences as a women nor young girls being impregnated by boys that didn’t know how to use a condom.  Of course, mothers mothered and fathers fathered unlike many parents today that are more concerned about their own pleasures and personal growth than they about preforming parenting functions.  What is happening today in relegating the parenting functions to state run facilities (e.g. schools, etc.) is not progression but regression that is indeed ‘messing up future generations’ because the time spent in school on parenting functions detracts from the real purpose of education and results in to a society with semi-illiterate generations who have inadequate reading, writing, speaking and math skills.