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Relationship education classes
Teens and Pre-Teens learn about love
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Sex education in most junior high and high school health classes focus on the egg and the sperm, and contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases. Some health classes, like the ones I took in school as a teen, avoided sex education entirely and just taught about things like calories and dental plaque (oh, did I feel cheated!). How about teaching teenagers about relationships? Film strips with titles like "Why Jenny Loves Martin." Lectures on "How to Deal with a Broken Heart" (something everyone should know!) and discussions on "Love Can Be Rewarding" and "Beware, the Abusive Partner." Knowing about calories or tooth decay, or even the egg and the sperm, never helped anyone enhance a relationship or get over a broken heart!!!!

Sparki, Sep 20 2001

[link]






       Sparki, that's meant to be the fun bit. It teaches you about rejection, sorrow, impecunity, infidelity, heartbreak, self-doubt, image envy, loss of appetite, jealousy...   

       The stuff about the egg & sperm is just some basic mechanical info so you know the consequences of stuffing it up.

UnaBubba, Sep 20 2001
  

       Textbook: The Halfbakers' Casual Sex Phrasebook.

lewisgirl, Sep 20 2001
  

       Aren't these called soap operas?

-alx, Sep 20 2001
  

       [UnaB]: Could you clarify what you mean by 'stuffing it up'?

angel, Sep 20 2001
  

       [angel] y'know, playing a round of "hide the sausage".

-alx, Sep 20 2001
  

       I never understood that one Rods. Why was it?

lewisgirl, Sep 20 2001
  

       "Hi, Troy McClure again. In answer to your question, lewisgirl: So they could peer down your cleavage when they thought you weren't looking."

UnaBubba, Sep 20 2001
  

       How about a class to teach people that relationships are not necessary and most people would be better off never being in one.... (wait, am I really that bitter? Damn!)

Susen, Sep 20 2001
  

       Most schools have counselling services that deal with this sort of thing on an individual basis, which is sufficient. If you're feeling blue, go and see your schools pseudoshrink but don't campaign to have pop psychology rammed down the throats of all students.   

       "Mister Alexanderson, define love. How do you mend a broken heart?" Don't you think that in answering these hugely subjective questions and incorporating these into a syllabus that something which is supposed to be dynamic is indoctrinated and left to stagnate. This can only entrench biases, block creativity and stunt a child’s growth. "Well Timmy, successful love typically develops between the ages of 19 and 26 in purely heterosexual relationships. Broken hearts are mended in time using the a function of the time you were 'steady' on the blackboard here." What a boring and pointless exercise.   

       [Sparki], you’re talking about the building of character. In my humble opinion, you can only obtain this decoration from the college of hard knocks. So, with this fishbone, I vote to keep the tides of vacuous relationship banter out of the curriculum.

sdm, Sep 20 2001
  

       Well, you're talking to a lady who had NO sex education as a schoolgirl. Like I said, our health class focused on things like "Obesity and How to Treat It" and "Tooth Decay and You." So, I ventured out into the arena of love knowing very little about matters of the heart, but everything there was to know about calories and plaque bacteria. I just think it would be nice if today's generation of schoolgirls and schoolboys were better prepared for love's rigors AND its rewards.   

       Yes, it is important to know about calories, and it's important to know about plaque. However, not everyone is going to get fat or develop cavities, but just about every Tom, Dick, and Gordon is going to fall in love at some point. I say, be prepared. You'll never know when Cupid is going to come along and slap you sideways!

Sparki, Sep 20 2001
  

       alx: soap operas are to relationships as porn is to sex.   

       I do see the need for some sort of relationship education--certainly would have helped me in high school. But the things I needed to realize weren't the things that would be taught in a state-curriculum class.

bookworm, Sep 20 2001
  

       Blissmiss, I am talking about the whole nine yards. Sex, love, relationships -- the whole nine. And, no, I don't do the horizontal slide with every Tom, Dick, and Gordon. I believe in love

Sparki, Sep 21 2001
  

       [bookworm] I'm glad someone picked up on that...soap operas are dire, especially as guides on how to live yr life.

-alx, Sep 21 2001
  

       Sparki - only nine? You're missing out. And what's this slide thing? I thought it was called horizontal jogging. Best way to keep fit ever invented.

lewisgirl, Sep 21 2001
  

       so only 8 out of 9 for each? I wonder whether Sparki will tell us what they lost a point for?

lewisgirl, Sep 21 2001
  

       By the way, I got that expression, every Tom, Dick, and Gordon, because I'm an aspiring writer working on a novel and a screenplay, both of whom have romantic male leads named Gordon.(in both cases, I named my heroes after Gordon MacRae, a golden voiced old time acting and singing idol who was physically nothing less than ideal.)

Sparki, Sep 21 2001
  

       where oh where did all the mothers go ??

po, Sep 21 2001
  

       Po, what do mothers have to do with this?

Sparki, Sep 21 2001
  

       The way I see it is that the grade-schoolers would get the regular health classes about which foods are fattening and how to brush your teeth, and the junior highers and high schoolers will get the Sex and Love Education.

Sparki, Sep 21 2001
  

       sparki - my best friend was my mother, she talked to me about everything and all my life I told her my worries, my feelings. my heartaches. we laughed and cried together. all my serious lessons came from our chats. and I cannot tell you how very much I miss her   

       Teachers are great but mothers are the people who should be helping you with these very personal details of personal and up close in your face intimate life   

       Teachers are National Curriculum not real life

po, Sep 21 2001
  

       sparki - I would have liked a daughter a bit mad like you

po, Sep 21 2001
  

       I have the same kind of relationship with my mother, and she taught me lots of stuff. But you're saying that junior and senior high health teachers are qualified to teach about tooth decay and fat but not about matters of the heart?.

Sparki, Sep 21 2001
  

       you are so lucky; forget the f**king teachers they are mothers too, talking to their daughters (and sons).   

       talk to your mum and enjoy while you still have the LUXURY - she is the one to talk to and learn from and she really speaks your language. shes been there, done that.   

       why do you think you need to learn from your teachers and not your mother ; she is the qualified person around here she really KNOWS you. genetically she is 50% of you

po, Sep 21 2001
  

       You do have a point, po. So, then, why can't PARENTS teach their children about things like tooth decay and fat also? You're saying that teachers can teach about calories, but only parents can teach about matters of the heart

Sparki, Sep 26 2001
  

       Oh. I suddenly feel very odd. All I ever got from my folks was <sobbing> dental care, and, <bawling> metabolism!

sdm, Sep 26 2001
  

       Mothers might be able to teach daughters (or at least inculate them with sufficient guilt that they're incapable of ever doing anything that might bring them the least bit of pleasure), but who's going to teach the boys. Fathers?   

       "Son, I'd like to teach you about emotions. It's okay to cry when your team loses, just as long as you make jokes about poofs and get drunk afterwards."   

       My father died when I was 15, but I don't think any of my male friends got much in the way of guidance on matters of emotions, relationships, etc, from their parents. And while he was alive, I remember one excrutiatingly awful conversation when my uncle had just got divorced and he felt he had to explain to me that marriage was a serious commitment, even though loads of people including him had decided it wasn't *that* serious.   

       So I think anything in schools would be a good idea. In fairness, most schools in the past 10 years have improved on the traditional zygote/gamete approach to personal education, and will discuss such topics as marriage, sexual equality, who should do the housework, in class, even if it's not taken very seriously by the kids.

pottedstu, Sep 26 2001
  

       I went to a girls' school. Re: the housework; the men, always. And they should pay for everything too.
p.s. "excruciatingly"

lewisgirl, Sep 26 2001
  

       What's the hangup about housework? Do it, it gets done. If you can't see either of you finding the time then hire someone. They're cheap and far more attentive than you'll ever be about cleaning your house. Maybe you'll have time to get your relationship right?

UnaBubba, Sep 26 2001
  

       I was lying about the school.
But about the housework... I'll do it, or he'll do it, or we'll both shout at the kids to do it (well, that worked for my parents)... I just find it interesting that it's such a point of contention, never yet having had the experience of just living with one person. I'm presently in a spotless house with two boys and one girl. Me and her are the messiest, skankiest dirtbags you've ever met, and the boys are military-school/family hygiene and hoovering dynamoes. (Dynami? Dynamo~s?) She and I just make the tea and let them get on with it, and everyone's happy.

lewisgirl, Sep 26 2001
  

       My sons did not have a father, they had a bullying alpha male in the house and then when I divorced there was just me. I am sorry to say that I probably made them lazy at the time (compensating for something?) as I did everything in the house but my one rule of thumb was that by hook or by crook I would bring them up to eventually make my role redundant. I think I succeeded in that. If you are reading this boys - phone home!

po, Sep 26 2001
  

       my Ma actually told/advised me to watch soap operas [or something like it] to learn about humans

technobadger, Sep 26 2001
  

       "Like sands through the hourglass, these are the Days in Aversion Therapy"

UnaBubba, Sep 26 2001
  

       lewisgirl: re excruciating. I knew that. I also knew that the best way to get one of your clever and inciteful comments was to include a spelling mistake in my annotation. (I'm experimenting with being nice on 1/2B. Like Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List.)

pottedstu, Sep 27 2001
  

       insightful. I'm such a sucker.

lewisgirl, Sep 27 2001
  

       Not only didn't we have any sex education at my school. We didn't have much of any other sort of education either. The history teacher hung himself when his girlfriend left him, one of the chemistry teachers was mad as a brush & was last seen pursuing one of his pupils across the football field and off into the distance, the french teacher got beaten to a pulp by one of his classes and I had 6 different maths teachers in two years and a Spanish teacher who couldn't speak a word of the language.

What's a relationship, by the way?

DrBob, Sep 27 2001
  

       should of

technobadger, Sep 27 2001
  

       lewisgirl: you fell into my trap. I meant "inciteful" (full of incitement) not "insightful". Gwa ha ha ha ha! (And I don't care if it's not a word.)

pottedstu, Sep 27 2001
  

       WOW! Do *real people* actually have mothers that TALK to them? About GOOD stuff? (like boys, an stuff, you know) How does one go about getting one of those kinds of mothers for oneself? The only thing my *mother* ever taught me was that I was "worthless as tits on a boar"! (*try getting THAT out of your head after a lifetime of hearing it!!*)

jeslookin, Jun 16 2004
  
      
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