I am very interested in your position. We are an expert culture and presume advanced training turns out a better product. If you have information about comparisons between lay persons and professional educators on teaching reading, math and other things, I would be intrigued. I think my phrase: 'look to educators' is meant to imply collaboration not deference or dependency. Part of this expert culture we live in leaves parents as the only non-experts...yet they are the ones who are the most motivated and bonded and interested in how their children develop.
- Arthur J. Delaney, “The Grotesque World of Today’s Sex Education,” New Oxford Review, p. 16, May 1996.
( posted here )
Gosh, just when this is getting really interesting, my son wants the computer to play "Oregon Trail"! I hope I'll be able to get back to this discussion later ... thanks for your patience, and although I picked nits on your article, I think the general approach you and your collaborator are taking is outstanding!
Some thoughts on the "expert" issue: Parents since ... when? Dr. Spock's day? ... have been told they're not competent to rear their own children without "experts." Now, if that's true, how did the human race survive between Adam and Eve and 1952? (One answer, of course, is "By reading the Bible!" but that's another issue.)
My point is that most things are just not that hard. Anyone who can read can teach a young child the alphabet and basic phonics, and then help the child to practice reading until he's fluent. Many of us remember being taught to read by an older brother or sister who was tired of reading to us! "Educators" decided that was too easy ... didn't give them enough prestige, since anyone could do it ... and invented all the failed "reading" education programs of the last century.
Similarly, with sex education ... obviously people from day one have figured out how man and woman come together to produce a baby. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. Most people throughout history have also emphasized NOT doing it outside of marriage, for very good reasons, as your excellent article discussed. However, "experts" aren't satisfied with that, either!
This, I feel, has more tangled roots than the reading issue (although there are some ugly questions of racism and class exclusivity in that ...). As you mentioned, the earlier children are taught about sex, the earlier they engage in sex. The cliche of a girl's learning "the facts of life" the night before her wedding is an expression of real wisdom ... it's human nature to *use* information, not just *know* information.
It comes down to the fact that someone has an agenda that requires promoting sexual activity among younger and younger children. There are a number of strands ... purveyors of contraception and abortion make money ... welfare systems get "clients," and the attendant power and budgets ... but ultimately, I think it's largely driven by sick lust. There are way too many people, men and women, jaded by normal sexual relations with adults, who want young children, boys and girls, available for sex.
Most parents, I suspect, are simply unaware of the agenda, but it's visible in the results: more pregnancies, more STD's, more pedophilia and child porn cases, more ruined lives and lost souls. If the "experts" truly cared about children's lives, they would observe these results and get out of the business, but they don't. They always insist on "more of the same," because they're getting what they want ... sexually available children.
As a final word, before I take my tinfoil hat off :-), I'll say that while some of our FReepers consider this an issue of "the homosexual agenda," I disagree. I think it's an agenda that encompasses a variety of people who want children for sex: men who want young girls, as well as those who want young boys; women after adolescent and preadolescent boys, as well as some pursuing young girls. In my opinion, there aren't enough homosexuals, male and female, to drive the agenda ... the numbers have to come from heterosexuals.