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BY CHRISTIAN BRYANT

Let’s talk about sex... or maybe not. News out of the UK is again stirring up the debate of how sex education should be handled in schools. The Sheffield Telegraph has the story.

“Up to 20 families at a Sheffield primary school say they are prepared to withdraw their children from classes in protest at plans to teach explicit sex education lessons to pupils as young as six.”
 

Those lessons included “good-or-bad touching,” homosexuality and the names of certain body parts.

As a writer for the New York Times Magazine reports, in the U.S. -- one Philadelphia high school is already offering a more “progressive” curriculum.

“The lessons that tend to raise eyebrows outside the school ... are a medical research video [the instructor] shows of a woman ejaculating. .. and a couple of dozen up-close photographs of vulvas and penises.”
 

But that writer also notes that few parents have complained about the curriculum. Eighteen states and Washington, DC, require sex ed to be taught in schools, while 32 states do not. On teaching an abstinence-based curriculum, one Roseville Patch writer examines the issue, and cites some interesting stats.

“Should schools teach abstinence-only or an ‘abstinence-plus’ approach, teaching that abstaining is best but also give students information about contraception in case they decide not to wait? ... According to The Media Project, there is no evidence that teaching abstinence-only keeps young people from having sex.”
 

So, what approaches have been deemed effective with such a delicate topic? According to a survey on Medindia.net, peer instruction may be a viable option.
 

“...Half of pupils aged 13 to 17 said that they felt awkward asking their teachers questions about sexual matters and the same number said that they had not learnt enough. However, two-thirds said that they would feel comfortable talking about sex, if the lesson were taught by an older teenager.”
 

Author Amy Shalet writes about how parents can approach talking sex with their teens, and believes parents in the US could take a few lessons from the Dutch. She tells The Washington Post:

“...In many Dutch families and in the educational and health care system, there is a process of ‘normalization’ around teenage sexual development: Young people are encouraged to ‘self-regulate,’ that is not have sex before they are ready ... and use precautions.