Comments about ‘State School Board gives schools guidelines for maturation education’

It seems to me a challenge to teach anyone the chemical changes and the resultant physical changes in the body without teaching about the emotional changes.

Someday, we as a society, will decide that our children are the most important thing, not the opinions of squeamish adults and will provide them with decent EDUCATIONAL information on their bodies, their emotions and their place in society.

Note to parents of elementary age children: some of your children, particularly the girls, will have entered puberty prior to the 5th grade pubery ed/maturation program. Hopefully you will have discussed it before that time. And, be the really cool parent who also tells them what happens to kids of the opposite sex as they mature and enter puberty.

Pathetic that some parents wish to push their responsibility to teach sex ed to the schools.

"Sex education" (whether expressly named as such, or not) is a pseudo-scientific nonsense, ignoring the fact that children naturally reach maturity at different ages. What may be appropriate for one 11-years old, is totally inappropriate for another. Only the PARENTS are competent to talk with their children about sex-related subjects.

The dilemma here is WHO is responsible to teach these "fluff" courses?

If the school takes the reins, people will complain about the intervention in family life, the direction of the curriculum, and -OH NO!- the graphic nature of what really needs to be discussed.

If the schools eliminate anything to do with sex ed then many parents just won't bother to teach it. We'll have a giant upswing in teen pregnancies and a complete dearth of knowledge about the most basic concepts of hygiene, human anatomy, and the "birds and the bees".

So, what to do? Give responsibility to the parents and expect societal disaster (read: taxes go up, communities suffer, etc.) or continue to intrude into the personal realm of the family teaching governmental values over personal values?

Reminds me of the sign out front of Sharon Elementary in Orem a few years ago, when it read "5th Grade Maturation" on the top line, followed underneath by "Mother-Son Activity". Jay Leno could have used that.

As usual, the responsible parents will teach their children and the irresponsible ones will not, which is why school maturation programs began in the first place. They are for that segment of the population who gets no information at home. It follows that basic principles, as stated in this article, are all that's necessary.

Many years ago when I was teaching 4th and 5th grades, we held an annual "communication workshop" for parents and kids. We met with parents and provided a slew of good material they could use for the The Big Talk. We allowed the kids to write any question they wanted to ask -- anonymously and without regard for "proper language." The results were phenomenal. Often, after reading the kids' questions, parents remarked, "Those are same questions I was asking at this age." This all helped both kids and parents get past the things that had been holding all of them back.

Then we turned them all loose to go home and talk.

It worked.

Our schools can't even get the basics (reading, writing and arithmetic) right. Why should we trust them to teach our children sex education when so many of us believe that it is associated with morality which is taboo in school.

To make matters worse many teachers struggle with their own sexuality and are themselves confused about the subject.

Why are we holding back the schools from teaching a subject that most parents are too conservative and "squemish" to address properly?

Kids are getting exposed to ALOT of information, even before the age of puberty in today's society. How about helping them make sense of it? How about giving them the knowledge to make informed decisions about what it happening to their bodies and what they are going to do with it.

If they don't get it at school, and they don't get enough of it at home, do you really think it is going to go away?

Teenages, even in Utah engage in ALOT of "sexual activity", outside marriage, right on school property.