They aren’t, nor should they be. Sex ed, drug education, and education about mental illnesses and eating disorders are all taught in a very sensitive manner and in a way that makes students feel comfortable asking and answering questions. Usually the teacher has a rule that if she finds out that one student revealed what another said there are consequences.
It just wouldn’t work to have patents there. Students would not be able to ask questions or share thoughts and experiences freely.
If it is taught in a “very sensitive manner”, then I would think it would be sensitive to parents, too, don’t you? If it is respectful, then obviously it has to be respectful of the rightful position of the parents or legal guardians as the primary educators of citizens who are still minors? Let us remember that we are in a situation in which minors are required by law to attend, and which, especially if they have aspirations for higher education, they have to pass to the teacher’s satisfaction. If the government compels it, then there have to be limits on what the government can do and how much parental control the government can seize for itself. There is serious usurping of authority going on here, all in the name of the sky falling if it is parents and not the local school board who gets ultimate sway over youth.
My kids school, before they did a section on human sexuality, sent a worksheet home that the parent had to fill out during a discussion with the child. Students are given questions that they have to ask their parents, and the assignment is for the parent to write in the answer. This was at a private school, however, so a) everyone had paid for the privilege to be there and b) everyone had agreed by the nature of the school attended on the course content with regards to morals. If the parents did not want their children taught what the bishop said is to be taught, they were free to go elsewhere.
At any rate, no matter how valuable it might be, it is not realistic nor just to make class discussions into some form of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, where everyone is enlisted to listen to everyone else’s deep dark secrets and is sworn to secrecy concerning what they hear. That is appropriate for a group of adults who freely choose to be there, not a group of students who are compelled by law (and perhaps their parents’ financial means) to be there whether they like it or not.
Ah, but the schools say, if this is not done by the school, then how can we trust the parents to provide it? How, indeed! Maybe what is taught to our youth ought not be primarily under the jurisdiction of a mandatory government school system! Yet when this is not so, oh, the administrators and propagandists wring their hands.
Oh, well. They’re just going to have to live with the chance to get it into Cosmopolitan magazine.
This is from their Facebook page and looks like a history teacher.