School board’s sex-ed guideline for parents meant to clear up confusion
This article is about the controversial changes to the sex-ed curriculum in Toronto. The point of the changes isn’t to disregard any important information that a sex-ed teacher should teach, but instead, show updated, current changes. Parent’s are having controversy with the curriculum therefore, John Malloy, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, makes it clear that critically important topics would still be addressed in classes. Some of the delays in the new curriculum include delaying the certain topics to be taught in high school instead of primary school. On another note, the topic of LBGTQ+ families aren’t present in the new guidelines, which brings up even more parental concerns. Overall, the TDSB is making sure these types of concerns brought up are being addressed and cleared up in order for families to understand what and how their kids are being taught.
This article could be an extremely important topic for high school students to discuss. Sex-ed, in general, is a hard subject matter to teach due to the fine lines that have to be walked in order to address information appropriately. While reading this article, students could ask the following questions: Should Sex-ed be taught in elementary schools? What are ways these types of topics can be addressed sensitively? Is it important to stay up to date on curriculums?
There are other questions students and teachers could address from this article but those are just a few. This article connects to the American Dream part of the Grand challenges. Being careful about what a teacher is allowed to teach in a sex-ed class brings up religion, beliefs, sexuality, and other sensitive topics that may lead to some problems. These topics are covered every day in everyone’s daily lives. It’s important to take them into consideration as an educator and as a learner.
This article can tie into most all of the High School Health Education Standards. One that stands out is standard HE 1.9 d.: Compare and contrast how physical, mental, social, spiritual, and cultural factors influence attitudes about sexuality. The idea of sexuality being covered in sex-ed is brought up in this article and could be a possible connection to this standard. Really, the idea of the guidelines talked about in the text is to meet health education standards. This is a hard article to connect to our Standards because we don’t require much into sex-ed in primary school.
Looking at teaching this lesson to high schoolers, I’d bring in Fish Bowl Discussions because this topic is highly opinionated. I’d have student’s come up with their own questions about the article while also giving them questions I came up with. This type of discussion strategy would allow students with different learning styles to be engaged. Students would work on speaking to each other, listening to others opinions, and combining ideas. This is good practice in respecting others opinions and hearing each other out. Overall, my concept of an organized focus relates to how I’d go about this lesson. A controversial topic covered by group discussion calls for a well organized lesson. Discussions can get out of hand or off topic, therefore needs to be monitored.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/09/12/school-boards-sex-ed-guideline-for-parents-meant-to-clear-up-confusion.html
