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Canada’s New Sex Education Program, starting Grade 1 (age 5)

05 Mar

In grade one, children will be taught to identify body parts, including genitalia, using their correct terms (penis, testicles, vagina, vulva) and to recognize exploitative behaviours such as inappropriate touching. In grade two, the concept of “consent” will be introduced very broadly as the right to say “no” in threatening situations. This has been misrepresented by many critics as “teaching children the concept of consent,” which is then in turn further misrepresented as “teaching children to consent to sex.”

The concept of human and animal reproduction — presented broadly as the union of the egg and sperm — has actually been pushed back a grade, moving from grade three to grade four, and the first discussion of sexual intercourse occurs in grade five, the same as in the previous curriculum.

Masturbation is defined in grade six and characterized as normal and not harmful, but students are not “taught masturbation.” A 1950s-era sex-ed video that I found in my research describes masturbation more graphically than the 2015 curriculum. Oral-genital contact and anal intercourse are discussed in grade seven. They are listed as potential sexual activities that one should consider abstaining from or delaying — not described graphically, “taught” or offered up as alternatives to delaying vaginal intercourse. They are described as part of a comprehensive sex education curriculum, which is the only type of sex education curriculum that is proven to reduce teen pregnancy and STI infection rates and raise the age of onset of first sexual activity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/karyn-pickles/ontario-sex-education-curriculum-update_b_6746012.html

 
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Posted by on March 5, 2015 in Uncategorized

 

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