Sexual Smarts Start in Schools
The problem with living in North America these days is that our brains haven't caught up with our bodies when it comes to sex. We are bombarded with sexuality in movies, magazines, and music every day. And yet in the midst of all this sex there is very little actual information.
Many people are unclear about how to take birth control, prevent STIs, or don't know the details of emergency contraception. We often only begin to learn these things when we're in the middle of a crisis, even then we may get the wrong information!
This is why sex education in schools is so important. If kids know how to protect themselves before they are sexually active then they have a much better chance at having a healthy and happy sex life, when and where they decide they are ready.
Options for Sexual Health (OPT) is one provincial organization working to educate kids. Its latest campaign included sending out over 1.3 million flyers to homes all across British Columbia (check it out at www.opt2act.org). One objective of this flyer is to let people know that sex ed is an important component of a quality education and our schools are sorely lacking. According to OPT's flyer, "Publicly funded, high quality, and comprehensive sexual health education in BC is still hit and miss". This information came from a report by OPT, called Hit and Miss: a Consensus Conference on Sexual Health Education in BC. What this means is that there are "gaps in consistency, comprehensiveness and quality in the delivery of this [sex ed] curriculum across the province".
Each district, each school, and even each teacher has different ideas of how to teach sex ed. This creates huge problems because there is no basic knowledge among the students. The "lack of a safe environment to talk about sex in the schools, and limited school resources" have been identified by OPT as two major barriers to the ability of students to make well-informed sexual decisions. This is often exacerbated by "teachers who were uncomfortable teaching the subject" and thus further narrows the resources available to the students (Hit and Miss).
Evidence of this deficit in school sexual education is that 12 teenage girls get pregnant every day in BC. We also have the fastest growing HIV rate among 15 to 29 year old women. This is not surprising considering that blowjobs are given out like candy at Hallowe'en dances and the pimp/whore culture is idealized in music and mimicked by our children. Clearly our kids' knowledge about sex has not caught up with the rate at which they are having it!
Being that this was OPT's first venture of this kind, they included one of Canada Post's marketing staff members as a part of their design team to ensure there were no complications. According to the Executive Director of OPT, Greg Smith, this was helpful in terms of issues such as the size of the poster, timing of the mailout, and dealing with censorship issues (of which there were none, see thesexparty.ca/about-us/court-challenges-program for information about our troubles with Canada Post). Because of this extra help, what was only an idea in the minds of the OPT team in May of this year became a reality in four short months with relatively few problems in its execution.
OPT's flyer mailout ended up costing approximately fourteen cents per flyer once designing, printing, and mailing were considered. The cost works out to over $180,000. This was possible for OPT, a non-profit organization, because of support from places like the United Way, Health Canada, the Ministry of Health, the Provincial Health Services Authority, the Columbia Basin Trust, the Vancouver Foundation, and of course public donations.
Public donations are only possible if the public is excited and want to get involved with OPT, and this was another objective of the flyer mailout. To get involved with sexual education in schools or your local community, download specially designed 'toolkits', at www.opt2act.org. There are separate kits for parents and students. These toolkits have been well received. Smith said that in the first five days alone more than thirty were mailed out in response to telephone requests and over one hundred were given out at conferences and community meetings. It's also available online for easy access to whoever wants it.
The overall public response to this campaign has been mostly positive, in spite of the concerns of some conservatives. In a random sample of responses to this campaign, 51% responded positively and 45% negatively. In fact, 85% of Canadian parents want sex education in the schools along with 92% of students, according to the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. Of the people uncomfortable with OPT's initiative, over 20% ended up feeling more positive and agreeing that sex education is an important topic to teach children after having discussions with Smith.
The reason so many people think sex education is a necessary component of the education curriculum is that it is essential for a functional and happy society. Sex education not only covers biology, birth control, and STIs, but it also teaches kids decision making skills, how to be comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality, how to negotiate relationships, and how to make the choices that correspond to their own morality and are not a product of peer pressure. These skills are applicable not only in sexual relationships, but in all relationships and life decisions.
Sex is an integral part of humanity, and while kids may think they know everything about everything, they are just beginning their journey into this domain. We can't teach them everything, but we can do our best to provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions. Lets support our children on their journey to becoming healthy and happy sexual adults. We can start by teaching kids the basics before they are sexually active. It's time we bring kids up to date before it's too late!