By Miguel G. Marshall, Sara Silverio Marques, Justine Ang Fonte, Amy Patel
(an excerpt from NAIS Sexuality Education: An Overview for Independent Schools)
Perhaps the chief role of independent schools in the context of sexuality education is to bring to the surface the core values of their communities and discuss how those values align with their missions and how those values may influence discussions and curriculum around sex and sexuality at their school.
An additional role that independent schools can play that intersects with sexuality education is developing media literacy. According to research on the health effects of media on children and adolescents (Strasburger et al., 2010), a century ago to be “literate” meant you could read and write. In 2009, however, it meant having the ability to decipher a bewildering array of media and make sense of them all (Strasburger et al., 2010). In the context of 21st century media literacy, it is important for educators to strive to be reliable sources of accurate, non-judgmental information, and have a willingness to engage in direct, honest conversations with students (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2016). Providing a forum for the discussion of sexuality education is important because of the fundamental role human sexuality and relationships play in the independent school goals of developing character and inspiring high-achieving students. As we have discovered in our research, sexuality, in and of itself, intersects and overlaps with character-development, values, and achievement.
Schools are also wrestling with finding time (and money) to support programs outside the traditional core subjects. Health education and sexuality education curricula may be interpreted as competing with the ultimate mission of core academic schooling. This challenge is not unique to independent schools; it also impacts public schools (Hall, McDermott Sales, Komro, & Santelli, 2016).
Further, independent schools always consider the role that families play. Families may identify a range of knowledge associated with sexuality that they find developmentally inappropriate for children. Although such information is often influenced by religious values and cultural backgrounds, it may not be the case with all families (Robinson & Davies, 2017). Additionally, cultural context and background affect how individuals receive and interpret messages about sexuality (Goldfarb & Constantine, 2011). This information is important to keep in mind when engaging families around the topic of sexuality.
No matter what approach to sexuality education an independent school chooses, the following prompts can start discussion.
1. Consider where you and your school stand on issues about gender, power, trust, hierarchy, and human nature.
● Do your or your school’s stances influence your perceptions about sexuality education? If so, how?
2. Consider the Circles of Sexuality
● What topics does your school already emphasize or discuss with students? Where are the gaps?
● How might the circles integrate with ongoing efforts in social and emotional learning (SEL) and faculty professional development?
○ Recall the SEL framework includes: a. Self-awareness
■ Self-management
■ Social awareness
■ Relationships skills
■ Responsible decision-making (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2017)
3. Consider whether your school helps develop values and educates for character? What are these values? Do they apply to sex and sexuality? Do they apply to human development?
4. Consider, as a community, the ethnic, racial, cultural, personal, religious, and moral concerns and undertones of sex, sexuality, and sexuality education.
5. Consider how a school’s mission statement influences inclusivity and exclusivity of difference and different types of peoples.
6. Consider intersectionality and how students’ diverse backgrounds and experience may affect their personal beliefs, values, and knowledge about sexuality (Breuner et al., 2016).
● According to the Independent School Diversity Network, “intersectionality” (or intersectionalism) refers to intersections between different groups of people identifying in various -isms or social identifiers; the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination. Find more information about this topic from: http://www.isdnetwork.org/what-is-diversity.html and https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/10/intersectionality-the-many-layers-of-an-individual/.
7. Consider how school dress codes reflect a social focus on adolescents’ dress as an expression of sexuality (Fortenberry, 2014).
8. Considering the role of values:
● Where do your own values come from? (Think of the role of your family, friends, media, religion, school, politics and other factors.)
● Have your own values changed over time?
● To what extent are your values implicit and taken for granted? To what extent are they the result of careful reflection?
● Do you think of values as having universal validity? Or do they apply only within cultures or traditions?
● Can schools avoid teaching values? If not, what sort of values should they teach, and how should they teach them?
● What values (either explicit or implicit) underpin any program of sex education familiar to you?
● Make a list of your own sexual values. Now write another list for someone you know well whose personality differs from you. How much common ground is there between the two of you (Halstead & Reiss, 2003)?
9. Regarding the implementation of sexuality education lessons and curricula, consider:
● Skills development in finding information or resources to make it easy to pursue new information when needed or when interest arises;
● Assigning homework or supplemental individual assignments that allow students to explore a topic of interest to them;
● Conducting activities that help students identify personal values, or start connecting topics learned in class to personal behaviors or situations they may encounter; and
● Including time in the curriculum for student questions and integrating these topics into subsequent activities to cover topics of intrinsic interest to your students. (Silverio Marques, 2014)
● Teens, Health, and Technology: A National Survey conducted by the Center on Media and Human Development, School of Communication, Northwestern University gathered a nationally-representative sample of 1,156 U.S. adolescents. Data from this survey showed that 43 percent of teenagers have viewed pornography online, 27 percent have viewed how to play alcohol drinking games, and 25 percent have viewed how to get tobacco/nicotine products (Wartella et al., 2015).
● Consider the role that your school may play in pedagogically addressing the viewing of negative health information online (e.g., pornography, how to play alcohol games).
10. Consider:
● Where does sexuality education fall within the broader context of the school mission and curriculum?
● Where do conversations need to happen to reflect on human sexuality prior to implementing a curriculum or program?
● Does your school want to use an established curriculum, develop its own, integrate concepts into existing classes, or adapt a curriculum to your needs?
● There are different ways to incorporate health and sexuality education into the school setting, including:
○ Health classes
○ Transdisciplinary projects
○ Guest speakers
○ Using literature from authors representing a diversity of sexual identities
○ Having a “wellness day”
○ Hosting workshops for parents
○ Conducting professional development for faculty
Ultimately, it may be our school communities’ values — moral, ethical, religious, or otherwise— and what we want for our students that determine our approach to sexuality education. Indeed, “moral education (and values education more broadly) is inextricably bound up with sex education, just as it is with education in general” (Halstead & Reiss, 2003). “The key questions now are what sort of values schools should teach in sex education, and what approach they should adopt” (Halstead & Reiss, 2003)? What values a school community espouses and how a school goes about cultivating and representing those values is unique to every independent school.
REFERENCES
Breuner, C. C., Mattson, G., Committee on Adolescence, & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2016). Sexuality education for children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 138(2), e1–e11. doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1348
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2017). What is SEL? Retrieved July 1, 2017, from http://www.casel.org/what-is-sel/
Fortenberry, J. D. (2013). Puberty and adolescent sexuality. Hormones and Behavior, 64(2), 280–287. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.03.007
Goldfarb, E. S., & Constantine, N. A. (2011). Sexuality Education. In Encyclopedia of Adolescence (pp. 322– 331). Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-373951-3.00086-7
Goldfarb, E. S., & Lieberman, L. (2016). Sexuality Education During Adolescence. In J. J.Ponzetti, Jr. (Ed.), Evidence-based Approaches to Sexuality-Education: A Global Perspective (pp. 218–236). New York: Routledge.
Hall, K. S., McDermott Sales, J., Komro, K. A., & Santelli, J. S. (2016). The state of sex education in the United States. The Journal of Adolescent Health, 58(6), 595–597.doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.03.032
Halstead, J. M., & Reiss, M. J. (2003). Values in sex education: From principles to practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Robinson, K. H., & Davies, C. (2017). Sexuality education in early childhood. In L. Allen & M. L.
Rasmussen (Eds.), The palgrave handbook of sexuality education (pp. 217–242). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_11
Silverio Marques, S. (2014). Developmentally-Appropriate Sexuality Education: Theory, Conceptualization, and Practice (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1665572178
Strasburger, V. C., Jordan, A. B., & Donnerstein, E. (2010). Health effects of media on children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 125(4), 756–767. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-2563
Wartella, E., Rideout, V., Zupancic, H., Beaudoin-Ryan, L., & Lauricella, A. (2015). Teens, Health, and Technology: A National Survey. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. Retrieved from http://cmhd.northwestern.edu/wp- content/uploads/2015/05/1886_1_SOC_ConfReport_TeensHealthTech_051115.pdf
