From the Toronto Star. . . 

Sex education in Ontario schools outdated, teachers say

Ontario's sex education curriculum 15 years out of date, says group of educators urging province implement new version.

By: Kristin Rushowy Education Reporter,Published on Thu Oct 10 2013

Ontario now has the most outdated sex education and health curriculum in the country — and if the government doesn’t soon implement a revised course of study, an entire wave of teens will have graduated from high school learning from materials created 15 years ago, says a group of educators pushing the government to make changes.

Cyberbullying, sexting and mental health are topics missing from the 1990s curriculum that high school health teachers currently use, forcing some to research and photocopy updated lessons from other provinces, says Chris Markham, executive director of Ophea, a non-profit association that advises on health and physical education.

On Thursday, Ophea will announce a crowd-funding campaign to raise money to place newspaper ads alerting the public to the fact that what students are learning “does not address the range of issues impacting today’s youth” and also to outline what the new curriculum does cover.

The ads will urge the government implement a new curriculum — one shelved four years ago after an outcry from a group of parents and religious leaders who objected to the sexual content for elementary students.

When teens want to talk about issues not covered by the current documents, educators are “looking for resources out of province in order to meet the realities of the situations they are seeing in their classrooms,” Markham added.

The revamped curriculum, based on two years of work and extensive consultations, was released in January 2010, but months later the government backed down on implementing much of it. That was after complaints about children learning about homosexuality in Grade 3, discussions of puberty in Grade 6 (and masturbation as a possible discussion topic), and, in Grade 7, talk of delaying sexual activity and preventing sexually transmitted infections, which could include discussions about oral and anal sex.

Charles McVety, an evangelist leader, called the curriculum “hostile” and too explicit, and the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario also expressed concerns. At the time, then premier Dalton McGuinty promised better consultations with parents, but nothing has happened since.

Markham says if the new curriculum is not given the go-ahead by the start of December, it will be too late to have it classroom-ready for the fall of 2014.

In a statement to the Star, Education Minister Liz Sandals said the government is “committed to moving forward with consultations in order to evolve this component of our curriculum,” but that “it’s important that we get the consultation right so that we can engage parents in the best way possible, without compromising the independent curriculum review process.”

She said there is no timeline for the consultations.

In the meantime, teachers will be “very, very frustrated” with the materials available, said Joanne Walsh, an instructional program leader with the Halton District School Board, who provides supports for health and physical education teachers.

“Teachers want to be responsive to their students’ needs and to the realities of their students’ worlds today,” she said. The curriculum “was written when the Internet was just fledgling, students didn’t have cellphones, they didn’t have smart phones . . . and they weren’t exposed to any of the things they are now.

“Kids have different stresses; it’s a different world.”

Teachers in her board are using resources that originated in Nova Scotia when teaching about mental health. Right now, the curriculum only deals with “mental illness” in Grade 11.

“It’s about suicide and mental illness, not about mental health,” she added. “It’s not about teaching skills that will help them to be resilient to conflict and problems they will face . . .

“Teachers are doing what they know is correct, meeting the needs of their students and they would rather do so in the context of a 21st-century document rather than something that’s archaic.”

Experts have said teens need to be educator about online sexual predators. One in five kids/teens have mental health issue that impacts them on daily basis. Said today’s kids have access to a lot of graphic sexual material online, and need updated information.

 

PROPOSED LESSON CHANGES THAT SPARKED OUTCRY

Here's what children were to learn under a revamped sex education curriculum that the premier has now put on hold after an outcry by religious groups and some parents:

Grade 1: Body parts, including correct terminology for genitals

Grade 2: Stages of human development

Grade 3: Healthy relationships, differences and how they make humans unique (discussion could include sexual orientation and homosexuality, physical abilities, cultural values)

Grade 4: Puberty and physical/ social impact (now taught in Gr. 5)

Grade 5: Reproductive system, menstruation, spermatogenesis, emotional stresses of puberty

Grade 6: Emotional, social and physical changes of adolescence (discussion could include wet dreams, erections, vaginal lubrication — "normal things that happen as a result of physical changes" — and masturbation, "something that many people will do and find pleasurable")

Grade 7: Delaying sexual activity, sexually transmitted infections (STI), pregnancy and STI prevention (possible discussion of vaginal/anal/oral sex as ways of transmitting infections)

Grade 8: Making decisions about sexual activity; sexual health/ abstinence/safe sex; gender identity (male/female/transgendered/transsexual)