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SEX EDUCATION IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF OUR CHILDREN
Doug Ford, our new Premier, has decided to scrap the new sex education curriculum and go back to the program drafted in 1998. Students deserve an updated curriculum (2015) and not one that pre-dates their very existence.
The Thames Valley School Board, under the able leadership of Laura Elliott, is going to keep teaching the new curriculum regardless of the province’s edict.
We have to teach our young people about the new norms of same sex marriages, cyberspace bulling, gender identity and consent.
Teaching the students only about conception is similar to showing them how a car engine performs and then giving them the keys to the vehicle to drive away without knowing how to use the brakes/ seat belts.
If we do not have teacher’s teaching our youth they will learn the facts of life presented in pornography via the internet. Parents for the most part have had to learn through trial and error. The birds and the bee romantic fairy tale can be devastating to our children’s long term physical and mental health.
I still remember my young son, Ari, who came home from River Heights Elementary school to ask me for help with the sex education program . He asked: "If he was allowed to watch and take notes when his mother and I had sex?" Ella was flabbergasted when I told him: "Sure, if you are awake you are welcome to watch." For three nights in a row he sat beside our bed waiting in vain for us to do it. When we didn’t do it he thought that we were really boring and went to sleep.
Our daughter, Sarah who was age 8 at the time "wanted to know where she really came from"? I sputtered and tried to explain the facts of life of life to her. After a few very long scary minutes she told me that: "she knew all that; her girlfriend, Betty, came from Toronto."
We owe it to our children to give them the best knowledge re sexuality at an appropriate age so they can better know who and what they are. For the most part we parents are not able/ willing to help our children until it is often too little/too late to help our confused teens.
The Ontario Ministry of Education has spent many years, thousands of our tax payers dollars developing the new sex education curriculum. to help teach our children.
It’s half way through the summer and 10 of the province’s public school boards have released statements: " Important an relevant sex-ed lessons will be included in the classrooms in the fall. The children will continue to ask questions and teachers will continue to try and answer the questions that the students have."
Politicians are not educators: They should not muddle with our children’s sex education curriculum.
Len Lesser is an education/career counselor in Dorchester, Ont.
Len Lesser