Thursday, May 13, 2004

Forever In Debt To Your Priceless Advice Doesn't happen very often after nine years, but every once in awhile, as a teacher I'm asked to do something completely new.  Something I've never come close to doing before. One of those things happened today. While I'm primarily a high school teacher, my seminar class consists entirely of 7th graders.  A bunch of giggly twelve and thirteen year olds, basically.  Well, I was notified earlier in the week that I would be escorting my 7th graders to a sex education class on Thursday.  Girls would go to one room.  Boys to another.  Since I'm a boy, I had to stick with the others of my species, but we were assured that the girls were getting the same treatment as us. The guy teaching sex seemed like a nice enough fellow.  Nice in an army sergeant kind of way.  But he had candy for good answers, so that took a little of the tough image off of him.  By god, if you could pronounce "clitoris" correctly, you'd have a Jolly Rancher tossed your way double quick.    So, the sergeant looking fellow was there to teach a room packed with around forty 7th grade boys the fundamentals of getting it on.  Or, as we quickly found out the foundation of his program, the fundamentals of not getting any.  Being on an army base, the school is strictly governed by whatever winds are blowing from Washington.  Right now the winds are whistling the tune of abstinence.  In fact when a kid asked about condoms, the instructor flat out told him that he's not going to talk about condoms "because they're not 100% effective.  You can still get someone pregnant or get a disease.  No, the only 100% effective way is -- what class?" "ABSTINENCE!" Wow.  Not even going to talk for a few minutes about how condoms work?  Just leave the boys hanging when it comes to advice on condoms?  Basically make it an all or nothing proposition when it comes to sex?  Condoms just aren't an option? Thanks Bush! So if the lil' guys weren't getting any birth control advice other than "Just say no," what did the sex ed drill sergeant talk about for over an hour? Proper terminology for all the naughty bits, for starters.  My twelve year olds can now point at a clitoris and call it by its first name.  Though several giggles ensued when one youngster had to have clarified to him just what an anus is. They also learned how all the plumbing is connected and what gets inserted where.  One guy (one of mine, I'm proud to say) wanted to make sure he had this right:  "girls have three holes down there and we only have two?" Later that same student wanted to know, if a guy gets "erect" when he gets excited, what happens to a girl?  The answer?  "Ummm... nothing.  She just gets feelings." I had to walk out of the room at that one because I couldn't hold back the HAHAHAHAHAHAHA that was about to erupt. Another wanted to know what would happen if you stuck your penis up a girl's urethral opening.  Answer:  "Don't worry.  It's too small for you to go in there." The look of relief on their faces was a joy to behold. That look of relief faded fast when he got to diseases.  Not only did he have a list of the heavy hitters in the STD all-star league, but he backed up his points with five foot tall overhead slides of sores, warts, swellings, oozings, and inflamation.  You ain't lived until you've been in a room full of 7th grade boys and heard them moan in disgust as a full-color, genital wart covered vagina is projected up on the screen in all its glory.  As one of my students put it after it was all over, "I'm going to go home right now and throw up." One of my girls had this to say after their presentation was over:  "I'm glad my vagina doesn't look like that." So after all that, what do my students now know from sex education?: They know their anus from a hole in the vagina. They know exactly what an oozing syphilitic chancre on some guy's package looks like. They know guys get hard and girls get feelings. They have no clue what to do with a condom. Can't wait to do this all over again next year.  What I can wait on is fielding all the questions I'm sure to have thrown at me next time I see my 7th graders. "Mr. Mauldin, do you make your girlfriend get feelings?" Related sites: Advocates for Youth poster Joy of Sex Education:  article discussing how backwards the US is in the area of sex ed compared to other countries in the world Sex, Etc:  Website by teens for teens   6:46:15 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.