Wednesday 01 October 2008
by: Megan Holland, The Anchorage Daily News
Politically minded Anchorage college students and high schoolers are banding together to reform the way sex education is taught around the state. Their goal: mandatory comprehensive sex education in high school. (Photo: The Associated Press)
Amber Sawyer remembers her classmates, young and giggly and still riding a euphoric teenage high, cutting class and sneaking off with boyfriends to the nearby running trails. In the winter, when the Alaska cold was too much to bear, the same couples, passing on algebra class, would rendezvous at a local theater.
Some girls ended up pregnant. She doesn't know who ended up with a sexually transmitted infection.
"I know exactly how bad the sex ed was, because I sat through it too," says the 20-year-old Palmer Colony High graduate. "We were not informed."
Now Sawyer, a junior at the University of Alaska Anchorage, wants to do something about it. She, with other politically minded Anchorage college students and even some local high schoolers, are banding together to reform the way sex education is taught around the state. They're reversing roles and telling their parents and school administrators that kids need more safety talk, not less. Their goal: mandatory comprehensive sex ed in high school.
It would be a radical shift from the hands-off approach Alaska takes, which leaves sex ed to individual school districts. The result of the way it is now, Sawyer argues, is hit or miss teaching on the sensitive subject. "I met one girl from the Bush who didn't even know what a condom was," she said.
The proposed change raises questions about what role, if any, schools should play in teaching beyond the ABCs, especially in a time of stringent federal testing requirements that are pushing schools to curb electives.
Sawyer, who heads a group at the university called Vox, Voices for Planned Parenthood, is circulating a petition hoping to get attention. Planned Parenthood of Alaska drafted the original petition and has already collected 1,100 names on it since late August, including 300 people under 18, said chief executive Clover Simon.
Simon said they hope to collect 5,000 names and show legislators "that there is general concern in the community that our sex education programs need to be improved."
She would like to see Alaska adopt legislation similar to what passed in Washington state last year. Schools there that address the topic of sexual function and health must provide more than abstinence only information. It must be medically and scientifically accurate, and age-appropriate.
Willing to Listen
According to a statewide study, 63 percent of Alaskan high school seniors in 2007 reported having sex. And, while Alaska has about average U.S. rates on teen pregnancies, in 2006 birth rates for Alaskan and U.S. teens rose for the first time since 1991.
This isn't the first time adults, teachers and administrators have heard from kids who say they need more "real" information. Anchorage high school students a year ago stood up in series of public forums at schools across the city and said they wanted more instruction, said Anchorage School District health curriculum coordinator Sharon Vaissiere.
"It was interesting to me that it was brought up by students themselves," she said.
Anchorage superintendent Carol Comeau said adding another graduation requirement may not pass muster with parents, teens and administrators. But there might be a way to attach a sex-ed unit to the already required high school health class.
"At this point, there has not been an official request," she said. But "I am more than willing to have the health curriculum committee look at that issue."
"It's a very controversial issue in so many places because a lot of parents don't want the schools doing it at all, others parents absolutely want the schools to do it. And then you've got a lot of people in between," she said.
Shirley Holloway, first vice chairwoman for the State Board of Education and Early Development, said the department has a history of deferring to local districts on curriculum. "We have tried really hard to be a state that honors local control," she said.
"Abstinence Plus"
Anchorage follows an "abstinence-plus" model, taught in the eighth grade, that parents can opt their kids out of. The program grew out of a task force a decade ago that included a doctor, nurse, religious leaders and educators. It stresses abstinence as the only way to guarantee protection against sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. Teachers also teach kids about what to do if they don't choose abstinence, Vaissiere said.
"We don't leave anything out."
The human growth and development unit can last up to four weeks and kids learn about everything from dating to breast self-exams to contraceptives, said Mark Meinen, a Romig Middle School teacher who has taught the course for seven years. "It's pretty in depth," he said. "When we get to the sex part of it, the main goal is abstinence."
But young adults like Sawyer say something is amiss. It's taught too early, when it's not relevant. Teachers are embarrassed and race through it. Kids learn statistics of what works and doesn't, but don't get practical advice.
Anchorage's Steller Secondary junior Bryn Winterberger said the way sex ed was taught was biased and skewed. She says the teacher used scare tactics on students and was not straight about the science of it all.
The 16-year-old is asking her student government to allow her to collect signatures for the Planned Parenthood petition in school halls.
Kate Fitzgerald, a 20-year-old student at Alaska Pacific University, said that when she was a freshman at Palmer High School, the contraceptive talk lasted one class period and the kids didn't even look up from their desks. They snickered and laughed and were happy for it to be over. "We were young and immature," she said.
Sarah Roberson, a 23-year-old senior at UAA, said it's na•ve of teachers, administrators and parents to think kids aren't sexually active. She joined the Anchorage public school system as a freshmen at West High, missing the eighth-grade sex-ed class, and "the only thing we learned about is how flowers reproduce."
"All parents should talk to their kids about sex, but a lot of them don't. Mine didn't," she said.
Hit or Miss
Nobody is keeping track of what is being taught where in Alaska on the topic. The variance appears to be wide. But it seems most public schools in the state teach some form of "abstinence-plus." Some invite outside groups to present either side of the controversial topic, like an abstinence-only advocate one day followed by a member of Planned Parenthood on another.
Doug Dye, a counselor at Akiachak high school 20 miles northeast of Bethel, said literature and pamphlets are available for his students. But teachers don't go into detail in the classrooms. "We basically just make sure they are aware of what the options are," he said.
Rick Luthi, superintendent of the Nome Public Schools, said students learn the biology of reproduction. "Contraceptives is not part of our curriculum nor is it stressed or talked about."
Robbie Everett, a science and health teacher at the Kotzebue high school, said he tries to find middle ground between the religious communities he serves and the needs of its teens. "We dedicate just a few days (classes) a year, trying to give them as much information as we can."
Still, he said, there are kids who graduate high school with sexually transmitted infections, and nearly every year girls fly to Anchorage or Seattle for abortions.
Everett said teens in Kotzebue face all kinds of major life issues - suicide, diabetes, obesity, and alcoholism are some. It would be good to talk about all of those and figure out what role the state should play in those lessons.
He cautions, though, that adding more state mandates would jeopardize time spent on traditional academics in a school that has not passed the standards under the federal No Child Left Behind law since its inception.
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