I noticed many people got their knickers in a knot over the Education Department’s new sex education plans.
The lesson plans are part of new reported content for the 2020 Life Orientation curriculum.
The Basic Education Department has stressed that there’s no new content, but rather an evolution of how it is taught.
What I have been seeing is headlines that’s scream “children in Grade 4 will be taught about masturbation and same sex partnerships”.
This has put a lot of people’s noses out of joint, especially those I dub fundamental Christians.
Here’s the thing: Modern parents are still not teaching their children about sex.
It remains one of those taboo topics that some parents find very awkward to tackle head-on.
In fact, many parents would rather avoid the conversation altogether, while others giggle and grapple their way through cringy metaphors.
And this seems to be the sticking point when it comes to the Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) plan, the detail with which the subject will be taught.
It turns out that today’s parents are as uncomfortable with the birds and bees as our parents and grandparents used to be.
For all our progress as a nation and as a species, when it comes to sex, we remain as conservative as we were in the 1950s.
The Education Department says it has researched sex education worldwide and the desired results are best achieved when the info is shared openly and clinically.
But never mind that, sex is the one thing that all human beings have in common; it is performed the same way by all of us, with exactly the same tools and, generally speaking, the same results.
We have major drawbacks, in the form of sexual violence, teenage pregnancies and STIs, among others.
I reckon correct information given in a classroom, in an appropriate way, is a definite weapon against those challenges.
And since most parents find the topic awkward and challenging, I think it’s a great idea that it be taught by teachers.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: Images in the sexuality education section of the new textbook for Grade 10. Picture: Supplied.
Here’s another thought:
Part of the problem is the extremes with how sex information is imparted to our youth, from those parents who don’t talk about it at all, to those who share dangerous, prejudiced and bias information with their children, which perpetuates our problems as a society.
With the department’s plans, all our kids will be taught and examined on the same content across the board.
I can see how that would be useful in addressing our social issues.
Most reasonable people would agree that info is power, which also means that misinformation and ignorance are dangerous.
Arming our children with the right information is a critical step towards empowering them to make wise decisions.
The argument that being taught accurate information about sex will sexualise our kids at a young age requires deeper thinking.
For parents who worry that the classroom lessons will be overly graphic, it cannot possibly be more so than the videos they stumble upon on YouTube and don’t tell you about, or which their friend shows them at sleep-overs.
The truth is, our kids get sexualised at a young age anyway by their peers and the media they consume.
And it’s all done out of context, which does a lot more harm that a classroom setting ever could.
If you really care about this so much, let the CSE go ahead and then supplement that information with your own when your little one gets home.
Better to have good, controlled info, than to have hushed tones that confuse and endanger our kids.