Open, Frank : Sex Classes --a Change of Direction

Almost overnight, a renewed interest in sex education was displayed in this quiet, unpretentious San Diego County community.

Little wonder.

One of the counselors at the town’s only high school reported that 20% of the school’s girls admitted to her that they were pregnant during the 1983-84 school year. A disproportionately large number were freshmen.

The startled school board swiftly ordered principals to change their sex education programs. Something had to be done, they said.

At the junior high school, a committee of parents, teachers and clergymen was formed. Among the issues they have yet to resolve is whether contraceptives should be explained to eighth-grade boys and girls.

Contraceptives Discussed

In the neighboring town of Vista, the school board in May decided that contraceptives should be included in discussions in the seventh-grade sex education curriculum, despite a petition signed by 1,000 people opposed to the course outline.

Proponents argued that it is about time that such subjects are discussed in American classrooms, given the nation’s virtual preoccupation with sex and sexuality.

Indeed, sex education has come a long way since the picture of the human body’s reproductive system first appeared in high school science books. Uncomfortable teachers went through their “organ recital,” as instructors called it, and students giggled nervously.

For years, children learned about sex, but not about their sexuality. They learned how babies are made, but not how to deal with passion and peer pressure when confronted with sex in the first place. They learned about baby care, but not the consequences of being a teen-age parent. But today, slowly, sex education curriculums are changing around the country.

Kindergarten Study

In New York’s Staten Island, kindergarten children are taught that animals and people reproduce themselves, and that it starts with an egg being fertilized. They talk, too, about how members of their families show love in different ways.

In Falls Church, Va., Mary Lee Tatum’s eighth-graders discuss orgasm, sexual feelings and the “goodness of their own sexuality.” They also talk about homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals.

Public high school students in St. Paul, Minn., visit a public health clinic on the school campus to talk to a nurse about which contraceptives are best for them. If a girl chooses to use birth control pills, she is given a prescription on campus, to be filled at an affiliated clinic down the street.

In community meeting rooms and church basements in Detroit, parents and their teen-age children meet for a six-week, federally funded program to learn--with the help of specially trained counselors--how to more openly and honestly talk to each about about sex and sexuality.

And throughout the country, teachers are attending special seminars to learn how to better and more comfortably teach sex education in order to win the trust and the attention of their students.

The impetus for more effective sex education is clear, and tragic: 40% of all teen-age girls will become pregnant before they turn 20, according to a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

66.8 Abortions Per 100

And the National Center for Health Statistics reports that in 1981--the most recent year for such figures--the pregnancy rate for girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 19 was 110.3 per 1,000. Of those, the center estimated that there were 66.8 abortions for every 100 live births.

By comparison, five years earlier the pregnancy rate for 15- to 19-year-olds was 101.4 per 1,000, and there were 54.4 abortions for every 100 live births.

Put another way, a greater percentage of teen-age females got pregnant in 1981 compared to 1976, but a greater percentage also had abortions. In fact, while today’s teen-agers are more sexually active than their predecessors, and starting at earlier ages, the birth rate among teen-agers is going down.

But if the primary goal of sex education is to reduce the number of teen-age pregnancies, it may not be working.

Neither Up Nor Down

Researcher Douglas Kirby, in the most extensive evaluation yet conducted on the effects of sex education, concluded that the variety of educational programs he studied neither promoted nor reduced sexual activity among the students.

The youngsters know more about sex, he found, but the courses generally do not change their behavior in sex--no more than a civics course necessarily makes good citizens, a driver’s education course makes good teen-age drivers, or a class on nutrition reduces the consumption of potato chips and candy bars.

Reducing Pregnancies

Of the programs he studied, the one with the greatest effect in reducing teen-age pregnancies was similar to the program in St. Paul, Minn., where an on-campus health clinic improved student access to contraceptives.

At several of the 31 such school-based health clinics that are around the United States, the local teen-age birth rates have been reduced by more than half over the course of several years, officials report.

In St. Paul, health clinics are operated by the St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center at four of the city’s six high schools--including one campus shared by junior high school students, who also have access to the clinic.

Variety of Services

The clinics, staffed by nurses, social workers and weekly doctor visits, provide health checkups, sports physicals, inoculations, counseling for family and parental problems, nutrition, weight control and eating disorders, and “pre-conceptual counseling,” including advice on the use of contraceptives. No abortion counseling is offered.

Ann Ricketts, administrator of the project, estimated that half of the school’s girls are using the clinics for contraceptive services. She maintains that easier access to birth control through on-campus sources does not promote sexual promiscuity among high school students.

“Kids tell us they became sexually active six months to a year before they came to us,” she said. “The pressure to be sexually active, and at an earlier age, is coming from other sources, not the availability of contraceptives. If contraceptives were the motive (for having sex), they’d be protecting themselves and we’d be seeing a lot fewer pregnancies.”

Familiar Surroundings

Girls are more apt to seek advice on birth control at an on-campus health clinic--where they have come to know the staff--than they are from a strange doctor or the one used by their mothers, officials say.

Walter Gunn, a research psychologist for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and who served as Kirby’s project director, observed:

“Classroom lectures alone did not reduce pregnancies, did not increase contraception among sexually active teens and did not delay or stop sexual activity. All the lectures seemed to do was increase knowledge and very slightly improve attitudes (toward sex).

“The only exception was the St. Paul program. So it looks as though sex education is effective only if it is coupled with contraceptive services, counseling and follow-up. And, in a lot of communities, that would not be acceptable.”

The Kirby study did find that the longer the sex education program, the more conservative the student became in his attitudes toward sexuality. There have been no authoritative studies indicating, as some critics suggest, that sex education promotes greater sexual activity among teens.

Gunn and a host of other experts around the country say the greatest success in delaying sexual activity among teen-agers will not be bred in the classroom, but at home.

That philosophy has sparked a new type of sex education curriculum based not on anatomy and physiology but on developing self-esteem and critical decision-making skills--values and techniques that can be nurtured at home, reinforced in school and be put into play when a teen-ager is confronted with an opportunity or pressure for having sex--or, for that matter, when confronted with drugs, alcohol and other vices.

Sexual Responsibility

“The better a child feels about himself, the less likely he is going to be getting into trouble and the more likely he will be sexually responsible,” said Gayle Nathanson, executive director of the Youth and Family Center in Lawndale.

“Talking about the plumbing doesn’t work in terms of helping kids deal with responsibility, how to say ‘no’ and how to plan a family. The nuts and bolts is too shallow a perspective,” she said.

An integral part of one’s self-esteem is being comfortable with one’s sexuality, at every age and stage of development, experts say.

“So it’s important we reduce kids’ anxiety about themselves and help them get a better grasp of their sexual nature so they can have more positive relationships,” said Mary Lee Tatum, a teacher in Falls Church, Va., and a nationwide consultant on sex education curriculums.

Tatum encourages open and wide-ranging class discussions on sex and sexuality.

The value of the classroom discussions is hard to statistically measure, she said, “but the parents are telling me their kids talk more to them, and the kids seem to feel much more comfortable about their own bodies, growth and development.”

Any number of organizations and agencies, including Planned Parenthood, the New York-based Sex Information and Education Council of the United States and the Center for Population Options as well as the federal government itself, offer advice to teachers and parents on how to approach sex education.

A four-year-old program in Seattle, called “Teen-Aid” and founded by two teachers, offers a model curriculum steeped in the philosophy that teen-agers can be shown the benefits of abstinence as the best birth control.

“We keep hearing about the 50% who are active sexually. We have to be supportive of the 50% who are not active,” said LeAnna L. Benn, Teen-Aid’s director.

Peer Pressure

“That’s the main flaw in most sex education courses--that they assume kids are sexually active. That puts a lot of pressure on the kids who aren’t,” she said.

Her program also includes take-home questions designed to involve the parent in the sex education. At that point in the class when marriage is discussed, for instance, the student is to ask his parents questions about their own engagement.

The National Parent-Teacher Assn. has not taken a position on sex education in public schools, focusing its attention instead on improving parent-child communication on sex in the home. “We want to train parents on how to talk to their children about sexuality, not what to say to them,” said Freda Thorlaksson, a National PTA officer.

The Catholic Church, partly in conjunction with the March of Dimes, also offers specific suggestions and programs for parents on how to talk to their children about sex.

The Biggest Concern

“Our research shows that the biggest concern among kids is in wanting to talk to their parents more freely. And that was the parents’ biggest desire, too,” said Mary Lynch Barnds, director of the National Forum of Catholic Parent Organizations.

“One of the first steps is to get parents to first talk to each other about their own values and feelings toward sex. Adults are very uncomfortable talking about sex-- even with their partners.” A 1982 Urban Institute survey of large-city school districts found that sex education at the elementary school level generally involves five hours or less a year; at the junior and senior high school level, six to 10 hours a year. The most common topics were physiology, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy and parenthood. Masturbation, abortion and homosexuality were least talked about.

The 50 states don’t agree on whether there should be sex education--and to what degree. While no state prohibits it, only New Jersey, Maryland and the District of Columbia require sex education in their public schools, according to the most recent comprehensive review of sex education programs around the country. While Maryland requires that separate sex education classes be held for boys and girls, Arizona and Louisiana prohibit the division.

Supported in Polls

With public opinion polls showing, time and time again, that the public is clearly supportive of “sex education” in the nation’s schools, why aren’t those programs more comprehensive, and in more agreement as to content?

“Parents say, ‘Yes, sex education is fine,’ but they’re thinking in terms of sex education that is supportive of their personal values. And not all parents agree on what those values should be,” said Jo Ann Gasper, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Can we teach sex in a value-free environment? Some say yes, some say no,” she said. “Do you teach that masturbation is OK or not OK, or do you ignore it altogether? Do you teach that contraceptives are good or bad? Very quickly you get into controversial areas.”

In California, as in most states, school districts have the local option of offering sex education.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, two to three weeks of sex education are carved out of health classes in the seventh and 10th grades.

Seventh-graders are told of “the union of the sperm cell and the egg cell. We talk about conception. But we don’t tell them how to. We just say ‘the sperm is deposited,’ ” said Ruth Rich, health education curriculum specialist for the school district.

Areas to Avoid

Tenth-graders are told of “responsible parenting,” but teachers are told to stay clear of discussing specific methods of birth control “because these are religious and medical topics that are probably beyond the purview of the expertise of the teacher,” Rich said.

Cathy Barkett, a state Department of Education consultant, is preparing a new set of suggested state guidelines on sex education.

Those guidelines will stress abstinence--and, based on the draft, will discuss abortion, she said.

No matter what guidelines the state prepares they are likely to be challenged. The Women’s Committee for Responsible Government, an anti-abortion group, already has sued the state, saying public money should not be spent on sex education programs that promote a philosophy “contrary to the Judaic-Christian ethic,” said Gloria Gillogley, chairwoman of the group.

A related story on what today’s teen-agers believe about sex, and where they get their information, is in View, Part V, Page 1.