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

[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.