Galadriel
Well-Known Member
(Continued...)
So this is really very simple. How much sexual guidance and instruction should the government offer our kids? None. What percentage of your child’s government education should be comprised of sexual enlightenment? Zero percent. How many times in a given school day should teachers talk to their kids about lubricants? No more than three times. Actually, zero.
It’s the Great Compromise. Instead of arguing about what the schools should tell kids on the subject of sex, let’s contemplate the possibility that a collective, government-controlled, mass produced and disseminated curriculum about sex and intimacy isn’t necessarily the best way to handle such a profound and personal subject.
I’m not saying that we should put censor bars over the penis and the vagina in the anatomy textbooks (or in books of Renaissance art, for that matter). I’m also not saying that high school biology teachers should tell their students that a magical stork drops the baby off on Momma’s porch. And I’m not saying that students shouldn’t learn about the facts of human reproduction when the subject comes up in science class. What I am saying is that the schools ought to treat sex the same way most people think it ought to treat religion, and for the same reasons. The ‘keep religion out of schools’ folks will argue that schools should not endorse a particular religion, encourage kids to be religious or irreligious, ask kids about their personal religious practices, or attempt to influence those practices. In these ways, we should ‘keep religion out of schools,’ but if they’re reasonable they know that we can’t and shouldn’t keep the fact of religion out of schools.
You can’t very well give your students a comprehensive understanding of western history without discussing Christianity. You can’t provide a well rounded education about literature without introducing the Bible. You can’t teach about art and avoid da Vinci. You can’t talk about contemporary Middle Eastern conflicts without introducing Judaism and Islam. You can’t teach the history of Asia without Hinduism or Buddhism. Religion will inevitably be a part of many other subjects, but it shouldn’t be up to government school teachers to tell kids how to feel about religion or what to do with those feelings. That’s what parents and churches are for.
And it’s in that sense that I make my case for keeping sex out of schools. Anatomy will come up in anatomy classes, and reproduction will come up in science classes, and that’s where it should end. Tell about the fact of sex, but nothing else. It’s absolutely horrifying that so many people — actual parents with actual kids — think that public schools should tread further into the topic and teach kids how to have sex, when to have it, and why they should or shouldn’t have it. Look, I try hard, I really try hard, not to judge parents or to criticize parenting styles different from my own. But I will judge someone who wants the Department of Education to help shape their child’s sexuality. I will judge that. God help me, I judge it.
‘Comprehensive sex education’ is a sham and a joke. It’s also more than just a little disturbing. If an adult in any other context came up to your child and tried to strike up a conversation about masturbation, oral sex, or dildos, you’d call the police. Imagine a grown man approaching your 12-year-old daughter on the playground and saying, ‘hey little girl, do you think you’re ready to have sex?’ Now imagine it happening inside the school, and explain why it’s suddenly less frightening.
Can anyone explain that?
Anyone?
I didn’t think so.
So if you can’t explain the distinction between a sex-ed teacher and a guy who should be on a registry somewhere, maybe we should just let parents handle this topic. Let them handle it because there are boundaries, and when a strange adult starts talking to children about self-pleasure, that boundary has been crossed, then crossed back over again, then carpet bombed into obliteration. And let parents handle it because, as we all pretend to agree, public schools aren’t in the moralizing business. Without a doubt, it is impossible to discuss sex without attaching a set of moral lessons to it.
This subject belongs to parents. It is their domain. ‘Yes, but many parents don’t talk to their kids about sex,’ I often hear it argued. That might be true. Still, public schools are not surrogate mothers. Lazy, selfish parents might want them to be, but that doesn’t change anything. There are facts about sex (‘this is a penis, this is a vagina, this is a uterus, etc’) and then there is subjective (and depraved) moralization about sexuality (‘you can choose your gender, you should have sex if you want to, masturbation is a good way to explore yourself, try making out with Pop Rocks in your mouth, etc’). There is a time for the former but definitely not for the latter. If you want to tell your son or daughter about those things — go ahead and tell them. If you’re too embarrassed to do it yourself, maybe that ought to be a sign of some sort.
However you choose to parent — and I really hope your parenting doesn’t involving telling your son he can be a girl if he wants, but that’s your prerogative in a free country — we should all agree that there is a distinction between a parent’s domain and the school’s, unless you homeschool. Indeed, maybe we’re all finding out that separating factual lessons from moral lessons is nearly impossible to do perfectly, which is yet another argument in favor of homeschooling. Maybe homeschooling is again the only real answer here. Be that as it may, as long as public schools exist, we must try to beat back its attempts to intrude on parental turf.
So while progressives take the Ten Commandments and the crucifixes out of the schools, I’ll come in right behind them and clean out the condoms and the genderbread drawings. And then we can meet in the parking lot and swap. I’ll take my religion home to my kids, and they can take their sexual permissiveness and confusion home to theirs.
Meanwhile, the schools can stick to the ABCs and 123s, and we’ll all be better for it.
So this is really very simple. How much sexual guidance and instruction should the government offer our kids? None. What percentage of your child’s government education should be comprised of sexual enlightenment? Zero percent. How many times in a given school day should teachers talk to their kids about lubricants? No more than three times. Actually, zero.
It’s the Great Compromise. Instead of arguing about what the schools should tell kids on the subject of sex, let’s contemplate the possibility that a collective, government-controlled, mass produced and disseminated curriculum about sex and intimacy isn’t necessarily the best way to handle such a profound and personal subject.
I’m not saying that we should put censor bars over the penis and the vagina in the anatomy textbooks (or in books of Renaissance art, for that matter). I’m also not saying that high school biology teachers should tell their students that a magical stork drops the baby off on Momma’s porch. And I’m not saying that students shouldn’t learn about the facts of human reproduction when the subject comes up in science class. What I am saying is that the schools ought to treat sex the same way most people think it ought to treat religion, and for the same reasons. The ‘keep religion out of schools’ folks will argue that schools should not endorse a particular religion, encourage kids to be religious or irreligious, ask kids about their personal religious practices, or attempt to influence those practices. In these ways, we should ‘keep religion out of schools,’ but if they’re reasonable they know that we can’t and shouldn’t keep the fact of religion out of schools.
You can’t very well give your students a comprehensive understanding of western history without discussing Christianity. You can’t provide a well rounded education about literature without introducing the Bible. You can’t teach about art and avoid da Vinci. You can’t talk about contemporary Middle Eastern conflicts without introducing Judaism and Islam. You can’t teach the history of Asia without Hinduism or Buddhism. Religion will inevitably be a part of many other subjects, but it shouldn’t be up to government school teachers to tell kids how to feel about religion or what to do with those feelings. That’s what parents and churches are for.
And it’s in that sense that I make my case for keeping sex out of schools. Anatomy will come up in anatomy classes, and reproduction will come up in science classes, and that’s where it should end. Tell about the fact of sex, but nothing else. It’s absolutely horrifying that so many people — actual parents with actual kids — think that public schools should tread further into the topic and teach kids how to have sex, when to have it, and why they should or shouldn’t have it. Look, I try hard, I really try hard, not to judge parents or to criticize parenting styles different from my own. But I will judge someone who wants the Department of Education to help shape their child’s sexuality. I will judge that. God help me, I judge it.
‘Comprehensive sex education’ is a sham and a joke. It’s also more than just a little disturbing. If an adult in any other context came up to your child and tried to strike up a conversation about masturbation, oral sex, or dildos, you’d call the police. Imagine a grown man approaching your 12-year-old daughter on the playground and saying, ‘hey little girl, do you think you’re ready to have sex?’ Now imagine it happening inside the school, and explain why it’s suddenly less frightening.
Can anyone explain that?
Anyone?
I didn’t think so.
So if you can’t explain the distinction between a sex-ed teacher and a guy who should be on a registry somewhere, maybe we should just let parents handle this topic. Let them handle it because there are boundaries, and when a strange adult starts talking to children about self-pleasure, that boundary has been crossed, then crossed back over again, then carpet bombed into obliteration. And let parents handle it because, as we all pretend to agree, public schools aren’t in the moralizing business. Without a doubt, it is impossible to discuss sex without attaching a set of moral lessons to it.
This subject belongs to parents. It is their domain. ‘Yes, but many parents don’t talk to their kids about sex,’ I often hear it argued. That might be true. Still, public schools are not surrogate mothers. Lazy, selfish parents might want them to be, but that doesn’t change anything. There are facts about sex (‘this is a penis, this is a vagina, this is a uterus, etc’) and then there is subjective (and depraved) moralization about sexuality (‘you can choose your gender, you should have sex if you want to, masturbation is a good way to explore yourself, try making out with Pop Rocks in your mouth, etc’). There is a time for the former but definitely not for the latter. If you want to tell your son or daughter about those things — go ahead and tell them. If you’re too embarrassed to do it yourself, maybe that ought to be a sign of some sort.
However you choose to parent — and I really hope your parenting doesn’t involving telling your son he can be a girl if he wants, but that’s your prerogative in a free country — we should all agree that there is a distinction between a parent’s domain and the school’s, unless you homeschool. Indeed, maybe we’re all finding out that separating factual lessons from moral lessons is nearly impossible to do perfectly, which is yet another argument in favor of homeschooling. Maybe homeschooling is again the only real answer here. Be that as it may, as long as public schools exist, we must try to beat back its attempts to intrude on parental turf.
So while progressives take the Ten Commandments and the crucifixes out of the schools, I’ll come in right behind them and clean out the condoms and the genderbread drawings. And then we can meet in the parking lot and swap. I’ll take my religion home to my kids, and they can take their sexual permissiveness and confusion home to theirs.
Meanwhile, the schools can stick to the ABCs and 123s, and we’ll all be better for it.