Educators Certification

In South Carolina today, a bill was passed to update the sex education law. However, in order for it to pass, the lawmakers had to remove the provision of the bill that required the sex ed teachers be certified to teach it. As a student having gone through sex ed 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade, I don't think I ever questioned whether my teachers were certified to teach it. Do you think certification should be required?

http://www.thestate.com/2014/05/15/3448143/sc-sex-ed-update-okd-by-senate.html

This reminds me of an episode of The Office, called Sex Ed (S7,E4). They have a day at the office for sex education and one of the employees takes it upon himself to teach it. His justification is that he was a resident assistant in college. Even though this is in a workplace versus a school, it brings up the same idea that it usually is not taught by someone who has taken certification courses.

Here is a video with some deleted scenes from the episode but the specific part I am talking about is around 40 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmhVNIR5Ppc

Louisiana also is in the process of fighting for sex education in school (required for grades 4^th through 12^th). This bill however was not passed, and it is the third time it has been rejected in the past five years. The main argument stated in this article is that the kids get enough information from parents.

http://www.thetowntalk.com/viewart/20140515/NEWS01/140515002/Panel-votes-against-required-sex-education-Louisiana-schools

Most teachers are not certified to teach sex education and neither are most parents. Should this change??

Also, not sure how many of you know about this, but there is a large committee dedicated to bringing comprehensive sex ed to schools: SIECUS – Sexuality information and education council of the United States. It is an interesting resource to look at, and has a lot of current information about the sex ed movement. http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewPage&pageID=1347&nodeID=1


-Nichele A.

What Does Consent Mean to You?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLdElcv5qqc
This PSA was put out by the White House conveying ant-sexual assault messages. The ad uses not only politicians but famous celebrities as well such as Steve Carrel, Daniel Craig, and Seth Myers. The ad concentrates on sexual abuse towards women happening on college campuses. The video clearly defines what consent is and how without it, sexual acts are considered rape.
1 out of 6 american females have been a victim of an attempted or committed rape (https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims). 80% of the victims are under the age of 30. Obviously being a college student, this topic is very relevant to me and my peers. We all hear stories about these acts happening, but seeing them play out in real life can be very alarming. However, I think it's a shame that in public school education, or at least mine, had little to no conversation about the topic that would better inform us about what consent is and to communicate to someone if you are feeling uncomfortable. Most schools barely teach about sex, one out of four teens receives only abstinence based sex education (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-Teen-Sex-Ed.html). These programs usually do not focus on sexual assault, but on resisting sex itself (which is usually addressed towards females). This can create a message saying that males only wants sex from you, and if one does get sexually assaulted or raped it is her own fault. It seems weird that this type of education would not try to relay messages of consent. It scares me to think about how many people go into college and do not know the proper meaning of consent.

I know the only reason I have knowledge about it is because I did extra programs that my high school had outside of class that spoke about it. I also remember learning the meaning in law class. This is very strange because girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely of getting raped of sexually assaulted (https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims). It seems important to teach students about these acts and ways to prevent them. It appears that college is too late to start teaching these things. Our education system needs to be more proactive in discussing ways people can prevent sexual misconduct. If you don't believe me, here is some direct evidence from the comments of the video illustrating people's views on the video:  "Or people who aren't stupid enough to fall for male shaming bullshit. Go tell a murderer to stop murdering, see how effective that is dipshit. Or better yet, Ted Bundy killed a lot of people. thus men need to be taught not to kill. Shit is straight the fuck out of soviet Russia"- ohheyboy2k4. "cheap feminist propaganda"-comme le vent. Guys, I would love to stoop to your low and actually explain why a video attacking sexual harassment is important and helpful. But since most of the responses I receive will consist of remarks such as, "what about men?" and "women shouldn't wear such slutty clothes" and "telling men not to rape is like telling them not to murder or steal" and "shut up white knight cunt," "- Tim Kirtland
Were you ever taught what consent was? Where and when did you learn? Has it evolved? Any other reactions to this PSA?  

-Rebecca G.