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OWL.
I mentioned a little while ago that I might teach Our Whole Lives, the UU sex ed curriculum, next year. Since then, I've done a lot of reading about the program, spoken to the RE director, checked in with my sister Debbie, who taught junior high Sunday School for six years, and decided to sign on.
Our RE director helped me examine my fears about teaching the program. I realized that a lot of what was holding me back was (okay, and this sounds ridiculous) my memories of being an awkward and socially rejected misfit of a junior high school student. When I tried to imagine teaching a class of 7th-9th graders, I imagined them judging and rejecting me the way that my childhood classmates did. She told me that there are hardly any adults who voluntarily interact with junior high kids (parents and teachers have to), and so the kids wind up with an enormous appreciation for the adults who do. Geekiness doesn't seem to matter all that much.
She also told me that, although kids are often reluctant to start OWL, the ones who get past the first class or two universally love it. And "for some kids it's a life-transforming experience." She really sold me on how great it would be to be part of that.
Only after I agreed did I discover that I'll have to go away for an intensive training weekend. I knew there would be training, but I thought it would be, like, a couple of six-hour workshops. Nope. The sample schedules I've seen pretty much involve nothing but solid training from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, plus a few hours for eating and sleeping. So poor Michael and Alex will be looking at a solo weekend, sometime this summer.
But whoa, the more I look at this curriculum, the better it looks. It really does look like it has the potential to be life-transforming. Take a look at the OWL values and issue positions. They almost make me want to cry.
My sex education as a kid was dry, factual - medically comprehensive but emotionally lacking. I was lucky to escape most of the false information and moral condemnation that so many other kids got (and still get today), although my mother was pretty direct about her personal disapproval of premarital sex. It wasn't bad sex ed, comparatively. But it was a far cry from stuff like, "Healthy sexual relationships are consensual, nonexploitative, mutually pleasurable, safe, developmentally appropriate, based on mutual expectations and caring, and respectful." Or "We are called to enrich our lives by expressing sexuality in ways that enhance human wholeness and fulfillment and express love, commitment, delight, and pleasure."
It's going to be such an honor to teach this course.
Our RE director helped me examine my fears about teaching the program. I realized that a lot of what was holding me back was (okay, and this sounds ridiculous) my memories of being an awkward and socially rejected misfit of a junior high school student. When I tried to imagine teaching a class of 7th-9th graders, I imagined them judging and rejecting me the way that my childhood classmates did. She told me that there are hardly any adults who voluntarily interact with junior high kids (parents and teachers have to), and so the kids wind up with an enormous appreciation for the adults who do. Geekiness doesn't seem to matter all that much.
She also told me that, although kids are often reluctant to start OWL, the ones who get past the first class or two universally love it. And "for some kids it's a life-transforming experience." She really sold me on how great it would be to be part of that.
Only after I agreed did I discover that I'll have to go away for an intensive training weekend. I knew there would be training, but I thought it would be, like, a couple of six-hour workshops. Nope. The sample schedules I've seen pretty much involve nothing but solid training from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, plus a few hours for eating and sleeping. So poor Michael and Alex will be looking at a solo weekend, sometime this summer.
But whoa, the more I look at this curriculum, the better it looks. It really does look like it has the potential to be life-transforming. Take a look at the OWL values and issue positions. They almost make me want to cry.
My sex education as a kid was dry, factual - medically comprehensive but emotionally lacking. I was lucky to escape most of the false information and moral condemnation that so many other kids got (and still get today), although my mother was pretty direct about her personal disapproval of premarital sex. It wasn't bad sex ed, comparatively. But it was a far cry from stuff like, "Healthy sexual relationships are consensual, nonexploitative, mutually pleasurable, safe, developmentally appropriate, based on mutual expectations and caring, and respectful." Or "We are called to enrich our lives by expressing sexuality in ways that enhance human wholeness and fulfillment and express love, commitment, delight, and pleasure."
It's going to be such an honor to teach this course.