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A Never Ending Story
North Miami Beach, Florida 9-4-2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
A NEVER ENDING STORY
At the mid-point of last century when I was a Junior High School teacher
in a ghetto neighborhood older teachers complained about a long tradition of
there being no shame among the school girls when one of their number became
a mother. In fact, one of the afternoon activities was to go in a group to
play with the new mother's baby! It seems true that dropouts are more
frequent in poor sections than dropouts in affluent neighborhoods but I
would like to point out that the reasons for female students dropping out
before graduation are most likely because they had become pregnant and had
not practiced safe sex. The irony is that children are protected against and
excluded from information about human reproduction as though this knowledge
is "dirty" and not appropriate for "good" girls. Boys acquire peculiar
beliefs about the sexes from discussions in their own culture.
It must have come to everyone's notice, even in their own lives, that when
girls reach puberty a certain atmosphere develops in their vicinity and
every boy notices. It is not necessary to teach children at this stage
about bees pollinating flowers. They notice without any help from books,
thank you very much. Most never outgrow this stage although they manage it
better with age. Many become great parents even if they are single. The
truth of this human venture is that it is part of life even if we decry it
in schools as alien to what the message of education is all about.
"Education" has long meant facts condensed into and presented in a formal
manner in books. These facts often are the fossilized information collected
by "scholars". Both the books written by scholars and the scholars
themselves are far distant from the lives of developing children. Yet, the
children are required by civilized societies to memorize and recite the
scholar-approved texts. Imagination is usually rigorously expunged from
curricula deemed appropriate for children and youths before they are
approved for adulthood.
I am for sex education of the sensible kind for school children. What do
you think? Carol's Evaluation: 9 out of 10.
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