Students Learn About Sex--Then About AIDS

Before they learn about AIDS--before they learn that sex can kill--Cathy Golliher’s seventh-graders learn the proverbial birds and bees.

The grim lesson on “diseases and disorders” follows the lesson on “growing and maturing” in Golliher’s health class at Walter Reed Junior High in North Hollywood. Human reproduction is explained independently of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) because, as the teacher explains, “sex itself is not necessarily a bad thing.”

But when the class gets to its next lesson, she adds, “We stress abstinence, that the one way you’re not going to get STDs is not to engage in sex.”

Pioneer Program

Golliher’s approach reflects the philosophy that the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education embraced in October, when it became one of the nation’s first school systems to require an AIDS curriculum for students in grades seven through 12.

As a practical matter, instruction about acquired immune deficiency syndrome varies according to the grade level and sophistication of students. The 11- and 12-year-old pupils in Golliher’s classes “don’t really know much about sex, although some of them think they do,” she said.

“But they’re very interested. Of course, most have heard the term AIDS, but most don’t know much about it, as most adults really don’t.”

The curriculum covers how AIDS is and isn’t transmitted and discusses sex and intravenous drug abuse. Sometimes the instruction is vague and euphemistic. After emphasizing abstinence, for example, the curriculum advocates the use of condoms and “avoiding risky sexual practices.”

Explanation Offered

If a student asks what that means, Golliher says she will explain about anal sex: “That the anus is not designed for intercourse, that vaginal tissue is designed for it and anal tissue is not. . . . But I don’t usually say that unless somebody asks. The teacher has to understand the needs of the children and what is appropriate for them.”

The emphasis on abstinence also reflects the approach being recommended by the California Department of Education, which is expected to unveil a revised health curriculum in early 1987 that encompasses AIDS.

In California, individual school districts decide how, or whether, to teach students about sex and its possible consequences. Each district is required by law to notify parents about any planned sex education, and parents have the right to withhold their children from such instruction.

However, fewer than 1% of students’ parents in the Los Angeles school system have exercised that option in recent years, said Ruth Rich, the district’s health education supervisor.

‘Not That Big a Deal’

“Teaching about AIDS is not all that big a deal,” said Gus Dalis, a health education consultant for the Los Angeles County Board of Education. “The primary focus is to view it as a disease, and it just happens to be sexually transmitted.”

Several California school districts include AIDS in their curriculums, Dalis said. The level of instruction may range from the detailed to the cursory.

AIDS education in the Los Angeles district--widely viewed as a pioneer effort--has generated little controversy, even though unlike instruction about other sexually transmitted diseases, the AIDS curriculum necessarily includes information about homosexuality. The school board considered it such a priority that it ordered a special two-period lesson for all junior and senior high school students.

In addition, the school board declared October as AIDS Awareness Month, which included a range of special programs at different schools and the dissemination of district-funded prevention brochures in English and Spanish.

Explicit Discussions

Frank discussions about homosexuality are more likely on the high school level, when students are more likely to be experimenting with sex and drugs and may be struggling with their sexual identity.

“We’re very explicit about it,” said Sara Eisner, a health teacher at Fairfax High School. “We talk about anal and oral. I don’t pull any punches.”

Fairfax, for example, even has a year-old counseling program for gay and lesbian students, believed to be unique among the nation’s secondary schools. It is known as Project 10 because of estimates by researchers that 10% of the general population is either homosexual or bisexual. Health instructor Virginia Uribe said she conceived the program after witnessing the ostracism of openly homosexual students on campus.

Last year, more than 200 students on the 2,400-student campus visited her office for information, including about 35 who identified themselves as homosexual, she said.

Emotional Support

“I just make myself available,” the instructor said. “The impression I get is that they’re very socially isolated.”

Uribe said she tries to provide emotional support for such students and occasionally will discuss AIDS and safe sex practices, especially with male students, even though she does not believe that they are as sexually active as their classmates.

“Just because they’re homosexual doesn’t mean they’re having sex . . . . For the boys who are openly gay, AIDS is very frightening. It just scares them to death.”