The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday in the noon hour.
QUESTION: What grade do you think sex education should start in school, and what topics do you think they should cover when they start?
Talk about it.
26 comments
7th grade. It should cover safe sex, pregnancy, STDs. The curriculum should dispel myths (such as masturbation causes blindness)
@PAUL….But hairy palms are still a dead give away.
sorry, bad eyesight prevents me from reading this…
so juvenile, I whole hearted apologize and retract everything I just typed.
The basics adding the economics and the responsibility of having children. This is not a car or some other inanimate object. This is a human being. Before you decide to have four of them understand the responsibility of teaching them right from wrong and plan how you’re going to pay for food, education, clothing and all the other things that come with responsible parenting. Don’t have a litter of children and ask later in life – “Who’s going to pay for my four kids?”
It shouldn’t. #startthere
♥️ warm kitty. You’re exactly right.
I guess it should wait until high school kids are in the back seat of a car on prom night.
For myself, I remembered it was middle school.
For our daughter it was 5th-6th grade, … that was soon enough.
My sister is gay, she knew at age 6, and let the Family know at age 15.
No one had to convince her. A person knows who they are on their own.
Am I a boy or a girl, and sex change/hormones, … is a subject for older kids.
7th grade also – cover what Paul & Karl H said above.. don’t need to duplicate
Never. I had it in 7th grade and all the sudden everyone started having sex. That’s the 100% fact. Abortions, girls dropping out, rumors, drama, fights. You can’t trust teachers to teach, let alone talk to kids about sex.
Our school was so underfunded that our Drivers Education car was also used for Sex Education.
If Rodney Dangerfield didn’t say that, he should have.
Parents should parent, not let the schools do it.
Sex education should not be on any school curriculum.
by that logic, what’s the point of school then? should it only be the parents who teach kids how to read, write, or do math? of course not. school is to educate. sex education should be part of that. it’s natural and there is no point in pretending like it’s a taboo topic. not to mention, some children do not have parents who are willing to teach them, are educated enough on the topic OR who have present parents at all. taking sex education out of schools would be such a disservice to everyone.
@Cowellian….Yes!! Just use the back seat instead of the front seat!
🙂
Sex education should not be taught in schools at all.
It’s up to the parents of the children to talk about this with their kids, not teachers or staff.
Period.
given what some of these teachers are, I’d prefer not teaching this in school.
Maybe as early as 4th or 5th grade. Most of my own sex education was by twittering young girls exchanging what they “knew” in the school yard. To this day I won’t eat dill pickles.
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7th grade with parents’ consent to opt-in.
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The fully informed tend to make better decisions than the poorly informed. Not always, but that is the tendency.
It started in elementary school for our kids. Don’t remember what it covered, but we reviewed the material at the time and it was age-appropriate. Certainly by middle school kids should be taught the basics of reproduction and how their bodies work. In general, the earlier kids are given information, the better. It should cover the gamut: the basics of reproduction, birth control and how to access it, pregnancy, options if you/your girlfriend get pregnant, STDs, how to decide what’s right for you, what the affect will be on your life when you have a child, the range of sexuality/gender or whatever they are calling LGBTQ+ these days. Give them reliable information in school early on instead of having them rely on what they see on their phones or hear from friends. The sooner the better for their own safety. Parents have a responsibility to teach their kids their religious/moral beliefs regarding sex and relationships, but schools should still teach the facts.
There are state standards for everything that is taught. When standards are written, there is a period of time where anyone from the community can have input.
So rather than sit on a website and complain, which is what 96% of all the posts on this site are, get involved in the process.
@MDUSD Teacher – do you think you, or any member of the public, have any influence on what appears in the state’s education standards? I’m getting the impression that pretty much everything generated by our governments is the result of back room deals amongst insiders and payoffs. Even here on the local level citizens can be adamant about a position once they hear what is in the works only to have their opinions 100% ignored. It’s a long standing issue that has also influenced the history of the United States.
my flies; classroom teachers, say Common Core Standards were forced upon them.
My Opinion: Common Core is failing our Kids. Local Teachers & Parents need to be first line developers of Standards. Teacher for academics and parents to keep out the B.S. Fluff…
Let the banter begin:
Hi WC Resident.
Curriculum standards are written at the state level. They are written, usually in collaboration with college professors and teachers who work with the grade level for which the standards are being written. After they are written, they are made public for comment, there is a feedback period, and an open meeting where there is public comment and then they are voted upon. Most recently, this was reflected in the state standards for the soon-to-arrive ethnic studies curriculum that will be required for the class of 2030. (I know a lot of readers from this site will see Ethnic Studies and cry about Critical Race Theory, but hold your breaths; CRT is not in the standards).
Then teachers and district personnel submit course of study standards, at the secondary level at least, and there is a period of time for public review; it will be examined at a school board meeting, complete with public comment, and the board votes on it.
The entire process is pretty transparent for those that care to be involved.
As for ignoring people’s views, we have a diverse community with strong beliefs on all sides of controversial issues, and I think we have lost some sight of the purpose of education. No group is entitled to get everything that they want. There is supposed to be a compromise. For better or for worse, our democracy is built upon compromise. There are solutions to hearing and integrating feedback from the community in all cases, but it appears that we have become delusional in thinking that if we yield, then I lose.
To prepare our young people for the world that they will be living in. A dynamic world with complex problems that require critical thinking, reasoning, and the ability to think for themselves while understanding that different opinions are a good thing, so long as disagreements occur in public spaces with the intent of all participants to listen and walk away with understanding and new ways of thinking.
I appreciate your thoughts.
@Bryan Shaw – than you for the thoughtful reply. While the process looks beautiful I have found that the people who will be most affected, in the long run, by whatever the process creates have zero input. “Transparent” meetings are a checkbox item. The community’s comments are dutifully noted and often published for the record. The board or council then goes ahead with a decision that the community was against. In a sense; the insiders discriminate against and marginalize the community while developing, for example, the Ethnic Studies standards and then curriculum.
I agree fully with you where you wrote “As for ignoring people’s views …” on. I have been wondering if has always been this way. I read newspaper articles from 50, 100, 150 years ago and things were often testy. Gentleman duels were often not polite. Historical compromises seem rare. Transactional negotiation, I’ll vote with you on this if you vote with me on that, is more common. That works where the parties are equal or nearly so.
Comments are closed.