OWL planning, or, Rivka views porn at church.

[rivka]

I met with our Director of Religious Education and my OWL co-teacher on Sunday to plan out the course. We're getting a late start, unfortunately, because we won't go away for training until the weekend of October 19-21. Then we need to hold a parent orientation, to explain exactly what we'll be putting their children through. That leaves us with the choice of starting the course right before the holidays and then having a big gap, or waiting until January. We chose January.

In order to get a 27-session class to fit into the spring semester, we're planning to do two overnights at the church. Intellectually, I think it's a great idea. Most kids love overnights, and middle schoolers don't get to go along to the weekend-long cons that are the mainstay of the teen program, YRUU. So overnights will help make OWL attractive and special for the kids. They'll also give a big boost to group bonding and cohesion. (We're planning an overnight as our second class activity.) We'll do three 90-minute class sessions (one on Friday night and two on Saturday) and leave the rest of the time for games and fun stuff. So that's all good.

On the other hand: we'll be spending nearly 24 hours locked in the church with a bunch of 12-14 year olds, who will almost certainly want to stay up all night and get into as much trouble as possible. Why don't they just kill me now and spare me the hassle of organizing the course sessions?

The other thing we did at our meeting was look at the infamous OWL Slide Set. The slides are kept under lock and key, cannot be duplicated, and may never leave the church. They're sold only to churches with certified OWL leaders, never to secular organizations. Parents are required to view them before the class begins and sign a statement attesting to that fact. And, um, wow. For good reason.

There are three sets of slides: anatomy, masturbation, and lovemaking. I saw the anatomy set first, and thought, "Wow, these are great." There are the labeled line drawings that most of us probably had in health class, and then there are also detailed, realistic, drawings of naked people and external genitalia, including comparative drawings showing the wide range of normal variations in appearance.

Then came the lovemaking slides, which are detailed, realistic drawings of people having sex. Really detailed and really realistic. There are separate sequences for a male-female couple, a male-male couple, and a female-female couple, plus a set of "outercourse" pictures showing each of the three couples engaged exclusively in non-penetrative activities. And whoa. They're nicely done, in a way that conveys emotional as well as physical intimacy. But holy cow are they explicit. And the series goes on and on and on.

After that, the masturbation slides were (if you'll pardon the expression) anti-climactic. There's a short series of detailed, realistic, explicit drawings showing various ways that men and women masturbate.

I know that probably all of the kids in the class have seen porn in one form or another, most likely on the internet. These pictures are much better than the things they've probably been exposed to in the past - more respectful, more mutual, more loving. I do see the value in showing these materials. But I'm having a hard time imagining myself working the slide projector and reading the explanatory script. Not to mention showing the slides to the parents, just a month from now.

Surely the training will prepare us for that. Right?

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Eep! They sound wonderful and educational and everything, but I think I'd die.

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

wow.

I think it will be harder to show it to the parents than the kids, frankly.

I am sure the course will give you more guidance, but I hope they want you to honest about how these images, shown in public with a group of people you barely know, makes you feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable doesn't equal bad, of course, nor something that shouldn't be done. It is just we are raised to think of some things to be PRIVATE and making the private public is a big taboo in polite society. And I personally think this is a BIG thing to convey to adults and kids alike - that it is okay to talk about things that make you uncomfortable.

I'd love to hear what guidance the course trainers give you.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons for being so careful to make sure all the parents know what to expect and to get that documented, is that to make all this work with the kids you'll be building a community of intimacy and trust with them - and yes, I think having a sleepover/camp early on will help a lot with that. Everybody - kids, parents, teachers - needs to see that there is nothing that happens in the course that kids would need to keep secret from parents, because a climate of secrecy has the potential to be dangerous for everybody.

Do you have any sense about how many kids are likely to do the course? Will there be kids from outside your congregation, whose parents hear about it and want their kids to be part of it?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I agree 100% about the secrecy issue. We're also going to do some educational outreach to the whole congregation, not just the parents of OWL students, to make sure that everyone has the basic facts about what we're doing and why we think it's a valuable part of religious education.

Do you have any sense about how many kids are likely to do the course? Will there be kids from outside your congregation, whose parents hear about it and want their kids to be part of it?

This is a topic of discussion right now. There are ten kids who have been in the RE program in the past few years who would be the right age for OWL, but we're only sure about 6 of them - the others haven't been attending recently. Of those six, only two are girls. (And only 3 of the whole potential 10 are girls.)

We would really like to have even one more girl in the class. With just two, if one doesn't show up then the other one will be the only girl - which could be very uncomfortable.

Our first step is going to be to ask the OWL students' families whether they know anyone who might like to enroll their child. That way parents can pre-screen for their friends' likeliness to accept the OWL program. As a second step, we'll reach out to the DREs of the suburban UU congregations (although they probably all offer OWL at their own churches) and the local UCC congregations. We won't, for example, just advertise to the larger community.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

The way Wayside is managing to do the hs OWL is to send kids of that age to the UU church, in a sharing arrangement. There are only 4 of the right age, and that's a bit small.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I saw that in one of your church posts, and I'm glad that they've found a way to give the kids OWL even though it's a smaller congregation. I hope the UU leaders find a way to share some of the UCC sections of "Sexuality and Our Faith" with the kids. The UCC faith supplement is (unsurprisingly) much more extensive than the UU version, and I really liked a lot of the things they brought in.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You'd have to call the girls and tell them what the concern is, to encourage the two of them to show up. Unless they hate each other, they'll both come.

K.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Well, we're sure that they'll both want to be in the class. It's making sure that they're both at absolutely every one of the 20+ sessions that's the logistical nightmare.

[(Anonymous)]

As a kid who went through AYS before the OWL curriculum became current, suck it up and act unembarrassed, please. The kids will, at best be pretending cool disinterest, at worst be attempting crude humor, but it's all a cover for how intensely they've been wanting a detailed guide. Just teach a normal class while pretending you're an alien who doesn't see why this isn't totally normal.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty good at managing my public presentation, so as long as the kids aren't reading my LJ it should be fine. ;-)

If you went through AYS, please keep your comments and advice coming! I would love input from someone who's been there on the other side.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

My husband went through AYS in the early 90's and remembers the class itself fondly, including the shock that old people have sex too. One negative thing that happened, though, was that they'd invited some other kids in the community to be part of it, and among that group of kids were some of J's bullies. You can imagine that the homophobic name calling didn't improve after watching slides of gay sex together.

I don't think that's anything a teacher can necessarily control, but I did want to mention it. Maybe a good topic of discussion, if it's not in the curriculum already.

I think the idea of the overnight is great though, I bet the kids will be super excited about that. J is still friends with a good number of people from his YRUU days, so I know that that age/activity combination is a powerful one.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thinking about my own camp experience with older teenagers: two adults can keep lots of kids involved and supervised in a 90-minute class, but for long periods of supervision in a freer setting, more leaders are very helpful. Especially if it means the person organizing the supper or the trust-building games can be a different person from the one getting ready to lead the discussion. So whatever preparations would be needed to get several adults / young adults involved in the fun activities and management of the overnight - whether or not they'd need to attend the OWL teacher training, you'd need to get them vetted and be involved in planning the activities. And it would be a bonus if they were not last year's RE teachers and mostly not these kids' parents.

When we take our 17yo on an overnight trip early in their time with us, it's terrific for the community. But I couldn't do it without enough staff / contractors to separate the "program" and "supervision" roles, and to make sure everyone gets some time off shortly afterwards. Can you book the Mondays off work ahead of time?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yes, we'll definitely have some additional adults to help with the overnights. (There's no way I'd agree to provide 24 hours of supervision with no opportunity to sleep.) I'd like to draw that help from the Young Adult group, which at our church includes people aged 22-35 (mostly on the younger end of that range). I'm hoping Dorian (Alex's former nanny) would be willing to take part - she's been really interested in the OWL program, so she might.

I think there's a general policy not to use parents as supervisors for youth activities; I know that parents of youth aren't allowed to lead the youth group, for example, and they're not allowed to be mentors for the Coming of Age program.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

That sounds great. University students make great camp counsellors and coaches, and you might get some people whose lives are too busy for a regular volunteer commitment but who would be great weekend helpers.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

When I was still going to church and working with the teens, we had problems with young adults as counselors. (We weren't talking about sex, Ghu knows, not in a Baptist church.) The teens got crushes on the young adults and that was bad enough without slides of sex.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I don't think we're planning to show the slides at an overnight. I hope not, anyway.

Hopefully post-college young adults will have good boundaries with 12-14 year olds, but in any case, they won't be doing much more than occasional helping.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

In my experience, dealing with the parents is the hard part - because they bring so much baggage with them. See that viewing as a trial run, and then the kids will be *easy*. The kids *want* this information desperately, even if they don't know how to ask. And once you establish a foundation of trust and respect, they will be cool. (Middle school is tricky - but my formula for working with older teens boils down to "treat them with respect" because teens are so starved for respect.)

just because you know that someone had to say it...

[anach.livejournal.com]

you've taken Ordinary Wizarding Levels to a completely different place...

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm totally impressed!

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. ...And yet, surely you understand why I'm petrified. I mean, can you imagine?

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I think what would get to me is the fact that the kids will be even more embarrassed than you, and showing that fact in very teenagery ways. Because I can do a really good job of pretending the things I think should be normal are normal, but only if other people are willing to pretend, too.

It actually reminds me a little of the sex ed curriculum we had in my alternative grade seven programme. We didn't have diagrams, but we did have anything-goes anonymous questions that the teachers had to draw at random out of a box and answer in front of four classes of kids. And when I say "anything goes," I REALLY MEAN IT.

-J

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this helps give you some perspective. I grew up in Denmark in the 1970s, including getting to the explicit sex education (at school) at 11, shortly before we moved to Australia (where I only heard some much coyer information later, and it would have annoyed me incredibly if that was all).

I really appreciated getting the information, and I've noticed as an adult I am a lot more laid-back about explicit sexual detail (in the educational sense) than most of the people around me. It makes it easier to talk to one's doctor too.

This might be incredibly awkward for you and the parents, but hopefully you are changing all that for the next generation.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

What are OWLs? (Dumb question from a non-Unitarian)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Not a dumb question at all, even from a Unitarian. OWL is "Our Whole Lives" (http://rivka.livejournal.com/tag/owl), a comprehensive lifespan sexuality curriculum. (Link is to my previous posts about OWL.) It was put together jointly by religious educators from the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ - there's also a religious supplement to the curriculum called "Sexuality and Our Faith."

There are OWL curricula for grades K-1 (ages 5-6; curriculum covers families, boys' and girls' bodies, and where babies come from), grades 4-6 (ages 9-11; curriculum focuses on puberty), grades 7-9 (ages 12-14; a full, comprehensive study of relationships and sexuality), grades 10-12 (ages 15-17; a more sophisticated discussion of relationships and sexuality) and adults (ditto).

The grade 7-9 curriculum is usually what people are talking about when they just say "OWL" - it's the only completely comprehensive, year-long program, and in many churches it's the only one that's offered. That's what I'm going to be teaching. And wow, is it awesome.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's a pity though that you need to provide the education that really the schools should provide. I remember getting the basic facts of life in Catholic primary school (that was Germany), complete with pictures of what a man and a woman look like naked.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Different U.S. jurisdictions have vastly different school sex education curricula. Maryland (where I live) is a liberal and well-educated state, and so our public schools are free of the travesty that is "abstinence-only education." They provide a decent factual education about anatomy, reproduction, contraception, etc.

I think OWL is valuable regardless of how good a job schools do at teaching the "basic facts of life." In a diverse and heterogenous society like the U.S., public schools aren't a great place to teach values - there simply isn't enough agreement, especially on controversial issues. OWL lets UU kids learn about sexuality in the specific context of liberal religious values. (For example, full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.)

Also, we can go much further and deeper than a school would have time for, in an atmosphere of greater trust and respect. This is going to be a closed group of 6-12 kids and three adults, who will commit to working together for a full six months. The level of group intimacy that's created will allow the kids to explore serious emotional issues in a way that they really couldn't in a public school class.

[redbird23.livejournal.com]

One of my church friends and I were talking at the retreat last weekend about how to talk to our (currently a year old) boys about their bodies and sexuality as they get older.

We were discussing OWL, and I knew that there was more to it than the full year program because of entries you have made before. We came to the conclusion that it would be wonderful if there was a session(s) for parents of young children to help them figure out the right things to say and teach in the years before OWL kicks in.

Our church only uses the full year program - I am wondering if joining the RE committee and being persistant might be enough to change that...