Friday, November 18, 2005
Modern Sex Education
I overheard my daughter and her friend making fun of the middle school health book the other day. They were studying the chapter on the physical and emotional changes of adolescence. The kids had noticed certain gaps in the chapter and places where the writers tip-toed around their subject. “Girls’ bodies become curvier,” one of the kids read aloud in a pretend documentary voice. “Girls’ hips broaden, and fat tissue develops in places that define a female shape.” The vagueness of that last sentence reminded me of my own sixth grade health class. One day many years ago, the boys were divided from the girls for a single hour of sex education.
All the boys in the room already knew there was a mystery-laden subject called sex, and now we were going to learn about it. That meant watching a movie about farm animals—cows and bulls, in particular. The movie taught us that eggs and sperm were the tiny cells that got the whole process rolling. Something called intercourse was briefly mentioned, but the movie made it very difficult to tell how the egg and the sperm actually became acquainted with each other. In spite of this hazy middle ground, somehow a calf was produced, all slippery and revolting. The cow licked the little critter clean and nursing commenced. The classroom lights came on and sex education seemed to be over.
But not so! There was still time for Anonymous Questions. Each boy was free to write a question on a half sheet of paper. We folded these over and passed them in. The health teacher piled them on the table. He unfolded one, and read it aloud to his very alert audience: “How does the sperm get to the egg?” I sympathized greatly with the questioner, for that part of the movie had been scrupulously discreet. The teacher resorted feebly to the term that the movie had failed to define. “Through sexual intercourse,” he said.
He unfolded a second sheet of paper and read aloud another question: “How does the sperm get to the egg?” It was the same question. In a gracious tone, he repeated the same answer, “Well, as I said, through sexual intercourse.” He unfolded the next sheet: “How does the sperm get to the egg?” Nearly every one of my classmates had written the same thing. That day, unlike other days at school, we all wanted to learn something in particular, and we were all thwarted in our quest for knowledge by the cowardice of the film. The health teacher was in no position to take the matter further, and I suspect he was as happy as a schoolboy when the bell rang and he could dismiss the class. The adults, it appeared, preferred that we learn on our own about the hazy middle ground, and I guess that’s what many of us eventually did.
Decades have passed since that sad day in the history of American public education. Since then I have witnessed the birth of both of my children. I saw them cleaned and wrapped in their first swaddling clothes. I saw each of them many times fall asleep warmly satisfied in their mother’s arms. The older one is now taking health class; she has entered the world of euphemism, the world of the hazy middle ground. Middle school sex education seems not to have improved in all the intervening years.
I’ve read the pages on the physical and emotional changes of adolescence in today’s middle school health book. Judging by the book, human reproduction involves cells and genes, but not sex. Judging by the book, adolescence involves emotional changes and a new interest in social life, but not physical attraction.
Outside of school, American children are surrounded by images of sexuality, many of which are plainly destructive, but in school we’re afraid to talk about it. What else are we afraid to talk about? Teenagers spiral into eating disorders or other self-destructive behavior. They experiment with alcohol and drugs. They learn to accept abusive relationships. Their lives are at risk, while adults, indifferent or afraid, offer them euphemisms. Young people know when they are being abandoned.