SEXUALITY EDUCATION:
THE GREAT DEBATE –
WHY VALUES-BASED AND NOT
COMPREHENSIVE?
SEXUALITY EDUCATION MATTERS!
Why the great debate over Sexuality Education?
The simple answer: The choice of Sexuality Education matters.
We cannot ignore or remain ignorant about issues affecting both our children’s internal and social well-being and need for identity and belonging.
What they are being taught when it comes to Sexuality Education affects them as they develop towards sexual maturity and seek how to express and channel their sexual awareness in the most beneficial ways.
Cause For Justice takes the best interests of children seriously and that is why values-based Sexuality Education is top of our list of things worth standing for.
WHAT IS VALUES-BASED SEXUALITY EDUCATION?
Values-based Sexuality Education is an alternative to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE).
There are a number of values-based Sexuality Education programmes comprising learning materials that can be used as alternatives to CSE content in the classroom.
These programmes are made up of learning content that is in keeping with family and community values. They focus on developing healthy and grounded children, and equip children with a resilient response to harmful messages about sexuality, male-female societal relationships and the destructive behaviours flowing from such messages.
WHAT IS COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION (CSE)?
The Department of Basic Education (DBE), with the assistance of international partners, has developed new learning materials to teach Sexuality Education in South African schools, as well as to out-of-school youth, based on UNESCO’s International technical guidance on sexuality education (comprehensivesexualityeducatio
The new learning materials are in the form of Scripted Lesson Plans (SLPs), consisting of an Educator Guide and a Learner Workbook, for grades 4 to 12. The DBE is currently developing SLPs for grades R to 3, and is also drafting a textbook for schools to use as a resource for the teaching of CSE.
THE ARGUMENT FOR…
WHY VALUES-BASED SEXUALITY EDUCATION?
Values-based Sexuality Education programmes are made up of learning content that is in-keeping with family and community values. These programmes focus on developing healthy and grounded children. They equip children with a resilient response to harmful messages about sexuality, male-female societal relationships and the destructive behaviours flowing from it.
THE ARGUMENT AGAINST…
WHY NOT COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION (CSE)?
CSE is ineffective and is not compulsory.
The latest review of the research Welcome! | Institute for Research & Evaluation (institute-research.com) on the effectiveness of school-based CSE programmes in countries inside and outside the USA, show that the available data used by UNESCO to promote CSE does not support UNESCO’s claim that school-based CSE is effective.
In fact, UNESCO’s own evidence indicates that CSE in school settings has shown little success and may be doing more harm than good.
THERE IS ALMOST NO EVIDENCE:
That school-based CSE is effective at reducing teen pregnancy or the contracting of STDs.
That school-based CSE increases consistent
condom use.
Of school-based CSE significantly increasing teen abstinence.
There is no evidence of school-based CSE producing dual-benefit within the same programme: Sustained increase in abstinence and condom use have not been found to exist together.
THE DEPARTMENT OF BASIC EDUCATION’S SCRIPTED LESSON PLANS
(SLPs) ON SEXUALITY EDUCATION :
● Not only contain factual content, but also ideological content that promote a particular view and understanding of sex and sexuality
● There is a clear bias against healthy development and healthy outcomes, in favour of the promotion of radical progressive ideals, where these objectives are in conflict.
● The basis of the SLPs – the 6-point core message – denies the true nature, value and purpose of sex and warps it by diminishing it to a mere casual or recreational activity.
● The SLP content also drives a wedge between parents and children, weakening the parent-child family relationship and dismisses family and community values as “prejudices”.
● Some of the factual content in the SLPs is not age-appropriate for every child in the classroom, within a given age group/grade.
● Some of the content is presented in a moral/values vacuum or in a moral/values context that many South African parents will disagree with completely.
● The ideological basis of the SLPs is Gender Identity Theory, which is falsely presented as a generally agreed upon approach and understanding of human sexuality and identity.
● The SLPs seem to deny sexual health disorders (specifically gender dysphoria/incongruence), thereby attempting to normalise subjective self-perception as the basis for differentiating between individuals in the public sphere.
● The adoption of Gender Identity Theory leads to:
- The privacy and safety of girls being sacrificed when gender confused boys are allowed to share girls’ changing rooms and bathrooms;
- Girls’ sports, similarly, are at risk of being taken over by boys;
- Healthy development – specifically puberty – being disrupted or blocked, meaning that children are in actual fact made ill by way of “medical” interventions and in some instances are sterilised;
● NB: As an important acknowledgment, we affirm that people experiencing whatever disorder or clinical condition, deserve the utmost care, dignity, respect and support. In our opinion, however, it is not in the best interests of a child to deny a disorder/condition they suffer from and arrest their healthy bodily development by way of “medical” interventions which in some cases results in irreparable harm.
INTRIGUED? CURIOUS?
WANT TO LEARN ABOUT THE DEBATE AND WHY VALUES-BASED SEXUALITY EDUCATION IS CRUCIAL?
WATCH AND LEARN…
Values-based Sexuality Education programmes – what alternatives are there?
Tomorrow’s Leaders in Training
Life at the Crossroads
No Apologies (Focus on the Family)
Smart Life
Watch a headmaster’s experience with implementing and benefiting from a values-based approach to determining which learning materials to use in the classroom
The Expo kicked-off with an engaging and eye-opening panel discussion.
Cause for Justice Executive Director and Legal Counsel, Ryan Smit, discussed the context and background to the state-sponsored CSE scripted lesson plans, as well as the actual content that is currently being rolled out into South African public schools.
Parenting coach, Drikie Atherstone, considered parents’, counsellors’ and therapists’ concerns about CSE in schools – as well as their experiences of the impact of the material on children and on the parent-child relationship.
Professor of political science, Nicola de Jager, discussed the intrusion of the state into the private domain, and how diversity is stifled by promoting the adoption of a single ideology (radical gender ideology) in the public sphere, including public schools. She also considered the philosophical roots of radical gender ideology (gender theory), including the origin of the use of the term ‘gender’ in the context of male-female societal relations and how it is used in our current cultural context and for what purposes.
Professor of medicine, Reitze Rodseth, from a medical perspective, clarified some of the terminology at the intersection of ‘gender dysphoria’ (also called ’gender identity disorder’) and radical gender ideology. He considered how the term ‘gender’ is used – and abused – in the context of drug-based and surgical interventions to achieve conversion of bodily sexual characteristics to accord more closely with the physical attributes of the opposite sex. He also discussed the impact of medical interventions to bring about conversion of physical attributes, on children.
Cause for Justice Executive Director and Legal Counsel, Ryan Smit, also gave a presentation on –
- the ineffectiveness of CSE,
- why the state-sponsored CSE scripted lesson plans are not compulsory, and
- what strategies are available for those who do not want to make use of the CSE scripted lesson plans in the classroom.
We also shared with our guests, a copy of a letter from the Department of Basic Education, confirming that public schools may use alternative learning content and/or programmatic material to teach the Life Skills (LS) and LO subjects in the classroom.
READ MORE AND LEARN...
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[/et_pb_image_n10s]EXPO HIGHLIGHTS IMPORTANCE OF VALUES-
BASED SEXUALITY EDUCATION
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[/et_pb_image_n10s]CFJ NEWSFLASH: VALUES-BASED SEXUALITY
EDUCATION
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[/et_pb_image_n10s]COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION UPDATE 2020
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[/et_pb_image_n10s]COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION UPDATE 2019
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