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 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.