| The following is an edited version of a blog written by a colleague for whom I hold a great deal of respect. She is a teacher who writes about Sex & Relationships Education. She wrote the piece in response to an article in the Daily Mail and another by John Smeaton, SPUC director.
"Posted on 3 May 2012 - Okay so today I decided I needed to blog about this some more.
Firstly I need to add the disclaimer I am not a primary school sex education specialist as most of my work concerns secondary aged students however I am a mum of children who will one day be going to primary school so I am as keen as the next parent to know what is going on in schools regarding their sex education.
As it happens I have a copy of the BBC Active Sex and Relationship Education pack at home in my resource bank but I have never had opportunity to use it- so I fired up the laptop to watch it in it’s entirety.
In the articles (Daily Mail & SPUC) the word “graphic” is continually used but to be frank, often the only thing graphic about them is they are drawn images, I have definitely seen a lot more graphic explicit cartoon images than those just by doing a google image search! I think this is a very deliberate use of the word to encourage people to jump to erroneous conclusions about the material. There are also some real life naked people within the resource, but I’m not sure what is “graphic” about a naked human body. Isn’t it simply what we all look like under our clothes!?
The other word continually used is “explicit”, - one definition of “explicit” is “having sexual acts or nudity clearly depicted” which yes the video does show nudity and cartoon drawn or computer generated images- but the spin being put on it, by SPUC and the Mail, is that this is akin to showing pornography, and it is “paedophilic” to show it to children (there is another rant in me on about that vile accusation but will leave it for tonight!). Believe me the videos are the least pornographic (and least sexy or titillating images I have ever seen!). Obviously would be wholly inappropriate to deliberately show pornography to school children as part of a sex education lesson (but remember many of primary school children are seeing such images online or even in magazine stands without parental knowledge or explanation). Yes the CD-ROM shows the mechanics of sex (which they call “making love”-and the importance of positive romantic relationships is continually reinforced), but to be quite honest, I would be more than happy for the vast majority of the CD-Rom to be shown to my children at 9 years old. If I was a primary school teacher I would also be happy to use this resource in the classroom as it actually is a really good teaching tool.
…….
Personally I actually am quite disappointed that yet again the government seems to have got sidetracked, into expending it’s energy on challenging a media provider to review a resource that has been already available for 5 years, instead of what we so desperately need which is to properly sorting sex education once and for all with proper guidance and training for teachers, and decent support for parents. But I am hopeful and optimistic that this is coming."
If you would like to read the rest of this excellent, balanced, informative piece you can do so at:
http://sexedukation.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/sex-education-video-or-explicit-sex-film/
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