Sex Education - Why Are We Failing Our Children?

When I was in the 6th grade at my Catholic School in the 1970s we had one day during the year when the boys were herded off by the only male teacher at school, the 20something former student who taught Boys' PE, and the girls were herded into the small hall for a lecture from a student's mother who happened to be a public health nurse. I remember squirming a bit as this woman explained the basics about our changing bodies and what 'becoming a woman' meant. She even got up on a chair to show us, over her clothes, how to apply a sanitary napkin and how to properly wipe ourselves after toileting to avoid disease and unwanted germs. I am certain there were girls in my class who had never been taught these things by their own mothers. I was one of them, of course, but I did have older sisters who taught me. Next the parent taught us the rudimentary basics of sexual intercourse, and using a visual aid from a gynecologist's office, showed us a model of the womb, both with and without fetus, and without being too terribly graphic let us know what had to arrive in the canal first before a baby could be made. When she asked for questions no hands went up. Prepared for this lack of curiosity, she had some 'general questions' ready and she answered them for us.

In freshman year at Girls' School in Health class we saw the graphic pictures of male organs infected with all manner of advanced veneral disease. Perhaps the nuns felt if we saw only disease ridden organs we would lose any desire to have sex, and they may have been right. Some of us lost any desire to have lunch for a few days too.