Does this sound wierd to anybody else??

My 15 yo daughter came home from school today, to tell us that they had to make a penis in health..

I was kind of like huh??!!

They had to use a pipe and playdo to construct it and had to make all the bits that go with it to.

DD was quite embarrased by the whole thing, the boys were of course making jokes and making huge penises, as well as saying things like "do you want to give me head", I guess this was to be expected, well the making of huge ones, not the comments. which got no response from the teacher!!

I think the whole thing is just a bit strange...

One of the girls said she wasn't making one and got into trouble from the teacher wtf??

Next lesson they are making vaginas....

So like the title says, does anyone else think this is a strange thing for them to be asked to do??

Yeah I think its a little bit weird too. Maybe its some new, improved way of teaching about sex??
I don't get it, but you would think the least they could do would be separate the girls from the boys with something this um...delicate?

OMG, I'm jsut thinking back to how I would feel if they did heath/sex ed like that way back when......Geez when you think about it like that I really can't see the point. You don't want to gross them about tooooo much.

You could always excuse her from the class if its all a bit "hands-on"! I would.

EEWWW, the more I type the weirder it seems!!!!

I agree, that is very strange. Never heard of it being done before. You can write a letter to the school saying you don't want her doing it and to be excused from the class, like lulu said. They cannot go against that. I really don't see the point either. I mean most 15 year olds would know about this kinda stuff anyways from friends etc.

I'm thinking of going to the school and talking to the principal.

At the very least I would have expected to be notified before this was done. I may have certain beliefs etc that may not include her making penises.

They had sex ed last year and the year before(they certainly will be well educated). I don't mind the sex ed, it's just the way that this took place.

If they want them to know how sex organs look, make an illustration or something.

DH says, we have enough trouble with teenage sex as it is, without giving the kids a hands on learning experience on how to handle the objects in question. He says it could be expanded a bit further, girls on the left side of the bed, boys on the right side, take your partners....

This reminds me of a Monty Python move :)

yep totally inapropriate.
i would be marching in to see the principle aswell.
nikki

Gosh, when I did sex ed, we got to cut and paste a diagram of a woman's menstrual cycle (guess that info would be handy for all the ttc' lol) and label pictures of the sex organs with what each bit was called.

Mind you, one class, when studying contraceptives (something that is needed in sex ed classes, even I had sex by then), got to put a condom on a banana. Or a carrot. (Guess they ran out of bananas). There was quite a stir when one girl ate the carrot for lunch though lol.

I admit that does sound a little weird. And being a parent now, I'd like to be informed about when and what my child was going to be learning about sex. But my parents were never informed, and the class wasn't even called sex ed, it was personal development. Bit suss I think.

I remember putting condoms on... something - guess my memory isn't that good - during sex ed when I was at high school, probably year 8. But I think you're right about making models of penises and vaginas. That's a little too strange for my likings.

And not acceptable for the teacher not to bring the boys in line. If they had to make the models, fine but to make them realistically sized. As for the comments....

Cheers,

Rachel

Not only the weirdness, but why on earth did the teacher permit that sort of comments to be said.?? Teaching the girls it's O.K to be spoken to like that???? and don't let them give you that boys-will be boys crap.

What a relief that I'm not the only one who feels this was wrong. I thought for a minute that I might be to old fashioned or something..

Phew :)

hey jackie,
Can i ask how old your daughter is? I know i wouldnt want my daughter being made to do things like that if she wasnt comfortable with it. Sure sex ed is important growing up, but making a penis?? Thats a little extreme. I thought that if kids were uncomfortable in classes like sex ed they couldnt be forced to participate in the activity. I agree with the others, talk to the teacher or principal.

Dee - DD is 15 in May, as far is DD is concerned she in her 15th year which makes her 15 :)

I think I would want to be informed if my kids where to do something like that as well. I think that is one of those letter where written consent from parents should be in order. i too would be ringing the principal today.

All we ever did in sex it was see how a tampon swelled up in a glass of water and watched a few videos one of a lady giving birth.

Love

JAckie I too think its a bit suss & would want to be informed as a parent on that sort of thing beforehand.... Good luck!

Well. I just got back from the school, the principal wasn't there, so i spoke to the co-ordinator, she was quite shocked when I told her. The way I said it, was meant to shock. She asked me what the problem was, I said well, my daughter had to make a penis in health yesterday....

Anyway, she is going to talk to the teacher to see what the deal is, and will be asking him to send letters of consent if he ever wants to do such a class again.

She sat there taking notes of what I said, towards the end her comment was, it feels bad just having to write this down,let alone having to do it.
But of course she had to through the comment in, that there would be a good reason for it. I just said without prior notification, there is no reason good enough.

It all went very well though, she will let me know what the teacher has to say, and I guess we'll go from there.

I spoke to a few other parents last night, and they were all just as shocked as I was, which I told her as well.

Jackie, ask her to bring the piece home to see if she has real expectations or if she is gonna be disappointed in the future!!!

sorry, I was just making a joke...

I don't agree with the class at all & more so the comments from the boys!
I sometimes wonder if that's how the Fathers talk to the Mothers in those families!?

Also I don't get the families brought up with boys being 'encouraged to sew their wild oats' & the daughters to be little virgins forever!!!


I bet the boys would have no idea how to make a vagina, there will be some nasty comments that day as well i guess!

Wrong wrong wrong. This is the height of 'wrong-ness'.
Seriously. I would have been up at the school in a blink. I don't understand the point of the exercise & why a diagram wouldn't suffice (if they are actually studying anatomy?!). With a class of 15 yr olds, you're asking for trouble. And nothing could excuse the boys comments AND the teachers silence. WTF?
I'd be demanding an explanation from the teacher. I find it so inappropriate, its incomprehensable. If something similar happened in the work-place you could sue for sexual harrassment. This is hugely confronting & embarrassing for young girls, if it was my DD I'd be horrified.
Where was the parents consent in this, surely a teaching method (yeah, right) so unorthodox, would have be pre-empted by a letter home to the parents informing what was to happen (& why) & requesting parental permission?
Not acceptable. :soapbox:

=D> =D> =D>

Here, here Chi-Chi. I totally agree. It was a dumb idea on the teacher's behalf to start with (surely there are more appropriate ways of teaching anatomy to teenagers) and she made it even worse by not responding to the boy's comments.

I wonder if other parents know what's been going on?

Definately worth following up with the teacher, if not the principal.

nothing wrong with sexual education if permission is given, but i dont see what the point of the exercese was. it didnt seem like it taught them a single thing, and it is just asking for the kids to be immature.

you were right to ask the question.

will she be making the vagina? i can understand you not wanting her to, but she might get teased a lot if she was singled out and the only one not doing it, i can imagine some of the boys comments - they can be little pigs!!

She wont be the only one not making the vagina, two girls parents have already told the school that their daughters will not participating. I wouldn't be surprised if the lesson is scrapped..

Sex education is incerdibly important and very worthwhile.... when done correctly. But let me just say that exercise is completely pointless in the sense of teaching sex education, and instead simply supplied the immaturity of 15 year old boys with something to upset and embarass others about.

Wouldn't be happy with that one at all. Im thinking stupid stupid teacher.


Keen

I remember one of our male "health" teachers was a dirty perv,
as well as checking out the girls, he would NEVER discourage sexist comments from the boys, which were frequent. I remember him laughing when my friend was referred to as "cheeky" when she had her sport shorts on. Yeah, they were short shorts, but still...!
That teacher would have been early 20's... I don't wanna freak you out Jackie, but maybe you should ask your DD a couple of subtle questions about this guy! Sounds like something a perv would do...

Yeah of thought of that, he is also her sports teacher, I'm glad they are allowed to wear long pants....

He actually thought the boys comments were funny, which I also brought up when I was at school this morning.

A friend of mine has a daughter in the same class, she rang up the school as well, she spoke to the same person I did, but is extremly upset in the way she was treated, mind you she was pretty peeved at the time and is likely to have started off on the wrong foot. She is going to see the principal on Teusday with a friend of hers who is teacher and have a serious talk to him about the coordinators attitude...

I found the coordinator very forthcoming, so am a bit surprised by this. Then again, she probably had quite a few calls today and would have been on edge herself by that time...

yeah thats totally wierd and its all wrong that the teacher didn't stop the boys from making innappropriate comments. Surely they should assign a less creepy teacher for health.
On the whole I prefer co-ed teaching but in the area of sex education I think that the genders should be seperated so that everyone can talk a bit more franky without embarresment .

OMG, I just hear some more snippets about the "health ed" class... talking about mutual masturbation and anal penetration....

I think I'm paying another visit to the school..

My idea of sex ed is to teach kids about safe sex, contraception, STD's etc. Definitely not the topics they are covering, if this isn't inviting kids to try it out, what is??

I don't think the next talk will be as nice as the last one I had with the coordinator!

I don't believe this guy... actually I do, and that's probably what scares me more.
In the meantime make sure your DD and her friends know to look out for each other...!
And when you do make that visit to the school, just wait in the carpark until this guy comes out and kick him in the nuts!

hmmm... doesn't sound like any health ed class I ever went to...

Let us know how you go, Jackie.

Hmmm, seems like I have a different take on this to a lot of the people on here... When I did sex ed it was always with diagrams etc., and I would have found it really useful to have a 3-d model at some point! It actually took me quite a while to relate what I'd learned with the "real thing" IYKWIM.

Obviously if your DD is not comfortable with it, that's totally different, and I think it would have been much better if the teacher/school had made it clear to parents what the content of the course was. But I do think diagrams (at least the sort I got) are totally useless for teaching people about sex.

The inappropriate comments sound pretty bad. I hope you can get things sorted out with the school, as you shouldn't have to worry about what the teacher is saying, and he should definitely be keeping the students in line!

Gosh....I am frightened by what I have read here! This teacher sounds VERY suspect IMO!! I would have been mortified if I had been asked to make such a thing when doing sex-ed when I was at school!!! I would have been very embarrassed at that age, and felt very uncomfortable about it!!

I can totally understand your concern and I really think it is highly inappropriate. Sex education is obviously VERY important and diagrams are obviously a necessary part of this, but I'm not sure I understand why physically making a penis or a vagina would really help anything, let alone the other issues that have been brought up.....that is just disgusting, that's all there is to it. This teacher should NOT be a teacher!!

Well, as the worse half of Jackie, all i can say is that it's plain wrong.
I've had no sex-ed class in school, i much enjoyed finding all the tid bits out on the way, at my own leaisure.. not to mention pleasure.
I dare say that i would probably have quite a problem drawing an authentic looking female watchamacallit without a willing model sitting in, yet i did ok handling the subject, i think. :)

It's a typical over reaction that we can, as always, expect from our so called "leaders". We need sex education, right, but we do not need to give even diagrams on how sex is performed, let alone hands on exercises. If that was a necessary part of being able to perform sex, then we wouldn't be here. This is one of the most natural parts of life and i'm yet to meet anyone at the right age not knowing how it would be done. At first clumsily, yes, but practice maketh perfect.
The emphasis was always on safe sex, due to STDs, especially AIDS and the fact that teenagers are being lead onto sex by even fairy tales now, but some morons in the education system have obviously decided that this should involve knowledge on a Gyno's level.
Next we'll have sex rooms, so sex crazed teeneagers can go and have "safe sex" ? Like with shoot up rooms ? Brilliant !

This is crazy and i'm getting peeved off even more as i write this, so i'll just shut up. Hm.. maybe that kick in the teacher's balls would be better coming from me, i used to play soccer.

Where is that damn punching bag ? Oh Duuuuuke, here boy.. :-)

Jackie, the latest subjects covered that you mentioned are a definate no no in my book, I think that is taking things way too far. For these sorts of classes, parents should be given a schedule of what is being discussed so they know about it before hand, and their child can sit that one out if needs be.

He sounds a bit suspect to me too, I would be taking it very seriously. Do the girls feel incomfortable around him at all?

I dunno, maybe it is old fashioned (although i am not old) but i think these subjects are better taught by a female, i think the boys are more respectful around an adult female discussing these things.

Woah... I cannot believe the comments that have come out of that teachers mouth!!
Surely something like anal penetration should not be a topic of discussion for 15 yr old?? Was it the teacher who brought that topic up, or a student?? Not that it should really make any difference...

I think this guy definately needs to be looked into.

And as for making models of genetalia... I really do not see the point! (unless they were studing gynaecology etc)
It sounds really suss...

Latest update...

I spoke to principal today, who has had many angry parents phoning and visiting him.
The subject used to elective, so there was previously no need to send anything to the parents.
The teacher is new to the school, he had asked a few other teachers whether any letters had previously been sent to parents, they of course said no and somebody told him the school had a kit to make genetalia.. the principal said that he thinks the teacher should have started the class off with discussions to see what the kids already new and to get a feel of how comfortable the kids would be in relation to various issues. The class has now been restructured totally, for some subjects the nurse will take the girls seperatly and in all classes the nurse(female) will be present.
The prinicpal hasn't yet seen the questionare re. the masturbation but will be having a look at it,I made it very clear that if it comes up in class as a subject that I would take the matter further. It's one thing if one of the kids has a question and the teacher answers it, but whole different kettle of fish if it is actually taught.
Apparently the principal has had words with the teacher, so hopefully there will be no more surprises
I have asked for a lesson plan for the rest of the term to be mailed to me, which he is happy to do.
Just hope that this is the end of it all.

Good on you Jackie. Thanks for the update!

Jackie, that is fantastic that it has been looked into and modified accordingly. Good to hear that the female nurse will be attending all sessions now as well.

Good on you Jackie for standing up for what you believe in - so many people would just let that stuff go by the way side..

Way To Go Supermum! \:D/


Keen

WTG Jackie, handled brilliantly! great about the female nurse, definately a better option!

Nah, no supermom, I think most mom's will protect their childrens interests. Someone told me I was like a mother bear, because I stick up for my DD, apparently I can be intimidating, news to me :smt102 .
It's only the bigger issues that I take on thoug, the little issues she has to learn to deal with herself. Sounds fair to me :)