The Controversy Over Teaching ‘Family Subjects’ in School

Re your editorial of April 21, “Lessons That Preteens Learn”:

How right you are about “an old myth” being pushed again in Orange County, the myth being that opponents of the proposed Capistrano Valley Unified School District Family Life curriculum oppose the program on a single issue, that issue being that sex education courses in school lead to promiscuity and pregnancy.

As most informed people know, such a hotly debated issue is seldom one-dimensional.

You misrepresented the case in your editorial when you stated that “in addition to sex education, the course includes classes on drug and alcohol abuse.” If you had properly researched the controversy, you would have learned that it also includes the very controversial Program Self-Esteem, the use of value clarification, instead of morals, in addition to a very graphic and “how-to” sex education program beginning in elementary school.

The use of value clarification and Program Self-Esteem have reduced a large part of our children’s education from one of cognitive education (which addresses the child’s intellect, teaches knowledge and skills) to an affective education (which addresses the child’s feelings and attitudes, and spends valuable classroom time on psychological games and probing the child’s personal life).

This “therapy” education, as well as the preoccupation with sex education that our children, ranging from elementary school through high school, would receive if the proposed “family life” curriculum is approved, is what concerns many people--not simply the one issue of sex education.

What we as parents want most for our children is a return to a curriculum that stresses the pursuit of basic knowledge and skills and not a curriculum based on secular humanism, which places all emphasis on the child’s social and psychological growth.

CONNIE McGRAY

Laguna Niguel