My calendar for essay topics was made years ago, and so it's sometimes a surprise when I look at what I am supposed to write today. Today, I will educate myself by accident.
Today's topic for discussion is this: Should sex
education be taught in public schools? Why or why not?
Essay topic, you're asking the wrong guy. I presume you would want someone who thinks he is educated on the topic to discuss it. But I guess that's the point.
Do we really want teachers giving us ideas we bring into the bedroom? Mind you, I know wonderful teachers, but I'm inclined to think they wouldn't be so helpful here.
I know that sounds racist against teachers, but 1) teachers are not a race, and 2) I'm a teacher by profession, as well. It's not as if I'm criticizing people I don't know well.
How would you even grade the understanding of sex? Short answer? Multiple choice? What if you make a mistake? Does the teacher correct you with a red pen? I don't know about you, but I think it would be embarrassing to walk into the locker room with red marks for my mistakes. I couldn't look at the other guys.
In high school, we had a health teacher who probably did some sex education. Her name was Mrs. Looker. She wasn't a looker. I mean, she was nice, but she was in her fifties, I think. But she wasn't hot twenty-something -- no low-cut dress, no leather mini-skirt, no ruby-red lipstick. I mean, I would want a sex-ed teacher in high school to be, well, inspirational. We want our teachers to inspire, right?
OK, so one day Mrs. Looker had up nap in class. Actually nap. We all laid down on mats on the floor and she described mind tricks to get ourselves to fall asleep. That probably would have been the perfect time to tell us about the birds and the bees (an American phrase for the sexual basics every young adolescent needs to know).
But no, nothing happened. She stayed away from controversy. So I had to learn about the birds and the bees from the mean streets of a Kansas City suburb.
The girls didn't. One day, they had the boys go to one class and the girls go to another. We boys saw a film about a football game. The girls saw something secret, some women-only thing. If they too saw a football film, I'll be totally shocked.
I suppose a little in health class would be enough, provided we can Google the mysterious questions in our free time. Just the bare minimum: How to prevent disease and how to prevent politicians from being born. I'm open to more possibilities, though.
But back then, I wish I had a different source to go to. I couldn't go to my parents because I didn't think they knew that much about sex. This is partly because my parents' sex led to me having three brothers and one sister. To a horny 16-year-old, that seems to miss the point.
So, what about the teacher? No. What about a counselor? No -- not me. I don't want someone stroking his chin as he listens to my incoherent awkwardness. What about the principal? Dear Lord, no. Under no circumstances. And friends? They were in the same boat, or the same shower, or the same -- never mind.
There's only one source I would have trusted: comic book superheroes. When I was in high school, there could have been a Batman comic where the Dark Knight came to the rescue of another sixteen year old. He could have taken a condom out of his utility belt, handed it to that awkward boy, and disappeared into the darkness before our school principal showed up. I would have learned about condoms and disease and things from a voice I trusted. It's too bad Batman never had a normal romantic relationship, but the concept of normal sex for 16-year-olds may be a bit difficult for even geniuses to understand.
And this would privatize sex education, using superheroes. It would certainly change merchandising.
OK, that's my spontaneous answer. I don't believe I have come up with any solid answers, but I have enough to trigger other thoughts.
I felt embarrassed writing it. I even felt guilty, talking about a teacher who has since passed away. But hey, I have this blog, and I gave myself this assignment, and that was the topic for today, and I need to face the fearful topics most of all. I hope her family would not be insulted to read this entry.
I held back, actually. There are multiple ideas for each of these points, largely by asking "What if?" But with this topic, and with an international audience of people I don't know, I didn't want to treat this topic in a dirty way. At least I wasn't comfortable doing so just yet. So I found myself focusing on the general insecurity of youth, at least my youth, to make this meaningful for me.
In the future, I will revisit this topic, but I will start over, using some of the ideas here, and consider it with less censorship. Then I'll post my response again, probably under a different title.
Do you have comments? For example, how would you answer the question? Please continue the conversation below.
Thank you for reading yet another installment of Let's Humor!
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